Skepticism

EVENTS

The company you keep

It’s a new year, and Thunderf00t hasn’t changed a bit — he has a new video where he’s apparently ranting about how feminism is poisoning atheism, which I haven’t watched, so I can’t judge. But there are hints that it’s more of the same. It’s been picked up and praised by A Voice For Men.

Here are a few of the amusing reactions that the video elicited from that gang. Well, they would be amusing if they didn’t testify to a deep hatred of women.

Well, now I look upon these women as nothing but Clowns who have deliberately allowed themselves to brainwashed into believing stupid things like the Earth is flat or some other stupid crap. The vomit that spews from their mouths is not just stupid, it is absolutely laughable. I now sit here laughing my head off at what I read. In my own social movements in life, I laugh at the idiotic dialog of the females I come into contact with. It is unbelievable the level of childish trash that issues forth from the mouths of women whose ages range from 20 all the up to nearly 70.

Women, WILL NEVER BE EQUAL TO MEN!

I don’t care how they put it, because the simple overwhelming fact throughout the history of Mankind, is that women have NEVER been equal to men and they never will be.

We are on this earth for completely different reasons and “never the twain shall meet.” (thanks Kipling, such a great saying)

That’s from a self-described orthodox Catholic, raging about believing in “stupid crap”. This same commenter is concerned that the Catholic church is a liberal, feminist organization.

I am angry at what feminism has done to all belief structures. They hijack everything to change it to be their own. As I said previously, the Liberal organisation of the Catholic Church is overrun by feminists and has been responsible for the spreading of this disease throughout the modern world.

And then there are the traditional excuses for “manginas” coming from people who are unable to think of a single reason for women other than gratifying the penis.

Just another classic case of feminists colonising a formerly male-dominated arena, then attempting to change its rules (unwritten or otherwise) to better suit themselves. If that alienates men, so much the better (and better yet if it criminalizes men).

And, as usual, some of the worst offenders are the mangina-enablers, collaborating in a transparent attempt to score some feminazi ass. *shudder*

Just for laughs, there are a few there who don’t like atheism, either, and really detest Richard Dawkins.

I wasn’t criticising Atheists, I was criticising Dawkins.

I personally think the man is an idiot. I have watched some of his interviews and all he does is drop bombs in conversation, by demanding his religious opponents prove their points, but I have not seen him prove anything himself. Indeed he is a bit like watching feminists in an interview trying to survive the argument when it’s obvious they lack substance.

For some reason, none of this entices me to watch Thunderf00t’s video.

By the way, I learned a new acronym! The MRAs have all these weird little code words I have to look up to figure out what the heck they’re talking about: the new one is NAFALT, or “Not all feminists are like that”. It’s a condemnatory phrase: you are bad if you recognize the range of thought in the feminist community and don’t lump them all into one evil long-haired, smooth-skinned, bosomy chimera of wickedness.

Now I’m waiting for the first MRA to show up and claim I’m cherry-picking the comments, saying NAMRAALT.

Considering the phrase rant was the extent of his commentary on the video (aside from that one sentence the entirety of the post is on comments to the video) I have a hard time taking your comment seriously.

Given the increasing portion of women now enrolled in higher education and the the decline in interest on the part of young men, this inequality might not be what men have in mind. Granted there are more problems than just education but the trend does not favor misogynists.

It gets even worse if you watch the video. Thunderf00t mocks Rebecca Watson for having established an always-go-around-in-pairs buddy system at TAM, portraying this as paranoia on her part. The fact that this was in response to an explicit threat of sexual assault didn’t seem to make the cut.

“Women, WILL NEVER BE EQUAL TO MEN”
Let’s assume this is orrect in one meaning or another. Anyone who can count further than three plus takes the effort to think for five minutes plus has an IQ written in two digits will realize that that is a damn good reason to grant women equal rights in every single respect. Because, you know, making optimal use of different qualities.
Won’t watch the video either due to lack of interest.

Maybe I’m looking at this “issue” from a different lens that is zoomed out of petty disputes. If we want humanity to be more civilized, we have to stop labeling and pointing at each other over little things. This reminds me of a presidential debate arguing over little intricacies (not even worth analyzing) over a larger problem that affects all of us as humans. With debates like these, I usually ignore them. The reason I’m leaving a comment now is that I want to express my frustration.

It must be my lady brainz, but I somehow consider people who despise if not outright hate women on sole basis of their gender, who are determined to prevent women from having some basic safety and dignity let alone full equality, more than just “a little” problem.

Thank you for saying that my concern over not getting rape and death threats, or actually raped and/or killed, to be a ‘little thing’ not worth bringing up in the name of civility. Apparently, if I just shut up nothing bad will ever happen to me because then I’ll be being nice and they’ll feel so bad for being mean to nice little me that they’ll duck their heads, scuff a shoe and say “Gee, I’m really sorry for that. Let’s be friends”?

# 18 We live in a world where 2 billion people live on less than $2 per day. We live in a world where 1 billion people die of hunger each year. The global economy is in a recession. We are not using science on a social level where we can actually solve these problems. So in this view your answer to your question is, yes. If I don’t care about the problems I’ve listed, then these petty disputes of racism and sexism (which are symptoms of bigger problems) then they will seem paramount.

On another note what is THE problem? I’m guessing you, among all the intelligent people in the world, have singled out THE issue that causes all the rest? Something simple because everything is simple?

Problems in a world of 7 billion people are not simple. Racism and sexism are interconnected with other issues, yes, but they should not be ignored in favor of your pet problem.

If 1 billion people die of hunger each year, our species would be extinct.

Your last sentence is also word salad and I can’t parse what you’ve intended to say. Racism and sexism contribute to extreme poverty.

And just because I happen to have it pretty good compared to a lot of other humans on this planet does NOT make rape threats, death threats, and the statistical odds of me experiencing rape to be okay and you are a HORRIBLE human being for suggesting it is.

So in this view your answer to your question is, yes. If I don’t care about the problems I’ve listed, then these petty disputes of racism and sexism (which are symptoms of bigger problems) then they will seem paramount.

It’s no big deal because….. global poverty?

Racism and sexism are “petty disputes”? Must be nice to be above the fray.

@ logic,
I”m talking about prioritizing all of these problems to solve in a humane standpoint with no attachment to labels, Yes, I know that I sound way too abstract. Yes, sexism and racism are problems along with many others.

I watched the vid; yes, it’s a rant.
The usual talking points, the usual targets (plus Esteleth), the usual accusations (hysteria, hypocrisy), the usual willfully decontextualized tone-deafness, the usual straw asserions of straw.
More of the same..

I’m sure you know whatever needs to be top priority, despite not sharing what that is. But the same way we don’t treat disease by ignoring symptoms. Especially when their are multiple diseases in the same body. Pretending the 3 billion people affected by sexism aren’t important is… you guessed it SEXIST OMG>

Hell in a billion years the surface of the earth will be scorched, we may as well ignore all problems.

So again, WHAT do you think is the root cause? Or the top priority or whatever you want to call it?

#23 – Alas, Superman will not be dropping out of the sky to save the day and eliminate those foul things in one fell swoop. Those bigger issues are rooted in the smaller issues. You can have the best coach in the world, but if the players are mostly bad, your team is still going to lose time and time again.

The rich are not going to simply going to give up their hard-cheated earnings. Only educated masses will spur them to stand up for what is right. Part of that education is the eradication of nonsense wedge issues such as racism and sexism that help keep the money with the rich and keep many earning extremely low wages.

The starving didn’t suddenly appear out of the blue. It is related to overpopulation of an area…almost always due to lack of empowerment by women (i.e. misogyny / sexism), lack of sex education, and lack of birth control. Simply feeding the starving (which we really should do) is a woefully incomplete answer. Part of a more complete answer is eliminating sexism.

The global recession is largely due to a power grab by the super-rich (essentially the top 0.0001%) which has drastically reduced the buying capacity of the middle class (as well as the size of the middle class). Our economies are based on high volume production of goods and services…without a strong middle class, those economies are predictably faltering. Just as with the low wage situation, we need the masses educated to push back against the rich and work towards more equitable distribution of the money earned which, in part, involves getting them to understand that the wedge issues of sex and race are nonsense.

Who needs to watch something to be able to criticize it, when you’re from FTB?

I used to be of the opinion that women, for whatever the reason, and on average, were somewhat lacking in the spheres of rationality and morality, but since following FTB and Atheism+ for the last year, I’m now absolutely certain of it.

If anyone wants to know how to engineer a train-wreck, and create a literal hell on earth, I point them to FTB.

We are not the only ones who have highlighted thunderfoot’s unselfcritical male chauvinism. Both sides of this agree on this much at least. By being praised by “A Voice For Men”, we know exactly which hobbyhorse thunderfoot is on.

(Oh, and I did watch the video. All the same old same old bitter bullshit he brings up all the time.)

Modern culture worldwide has issues but I absolutely hate the childish idea that it is in decline. It is better than it was. In every way. It still sucks, but less so. I am glad you just hit mental puberty and realized the world isn’t perfect but you haven’t passed the stage where you believe the world is built on simple premises that you are the first to see.

Once more the medical analogy. If someone is sick you treat the symptoms. If they have multiple problems you don’t ignore one disease because the other is worse.

# 18 We live in a world where 2 billion people live on less than $2 per day. We live in a world where 1 billion people die of hunger each year.

Then fuck off and start helping them. Or admit that there’s more to life than putting every effort into solving the world’s most dire problem. You find time to argue on the internet. Don’t complain if others find time to combat racism and sexism.

Whoa, hold on now, that’s not right. What if someone did that to you, PZ? Siad you were “guilty by association” because some knuckleheads decided to praise you?

So he’s guilty by association depending on if someone from AVFM praises him or not? NO ONE’S guilt should be determined by the decision of someone else. If what PZ would consider a radical, extremist “feminist” (putting that in quotes because they’d not be true feminists) praised some things he had to say, would he be as guilty as them? Depending on whether or not they approve of something he’d done, would he be guilty or not guilty?

No. That’s wrong.

There might be something even some serial killer in jail agrees with me on, but that doesn’t mean I’m “guilty by association” of selecteddisgustingvieworactionoftheirsHere.

Why choose misogyny to associate with him based on this, though? Why not something else whoever praised him approves of? Why not “Because people of AVfM praised thundef00t, and those people sniff their butts every Wednesday, thunderf00t is guilty of this auto-ass sniffing attitude as well.”

No. Someone is guilty of the things they do, the views they have, and the actions or views they approve of from others. If thunderf00t doesn’t approve of whatever actions you complain about AVfM doing, he’s NOT guilty by association.

THEY choose to associate with him by praising his video.

Those of AVfM is guilty of associating with the video. Not the other way around.

I’m sorry but this form of “guilty by association” isn’t right, and it wouldn’t be right if someone took advantage of such faulty logic and tried to associate you with something they don’t like, PZ. Whether or not you’d agree with me just because I made my case… *shrug*. Nothing wrong with changing your mind or agreeing with someone else sometimes.

Rationalhumano is regurgitating what appears to be a new MRA talking point; poverty is more important than any feminist concerns. Someone tried this on Maryam’s post about the New Dehli rape; it wasn’t important to discuss sexual assault as long as there was poverty in India.

At least that poster felt free to let their freak flag fly; they also swore that feminist groups were the best funded lobbying organizations in every country.

I didn’t write about the video because I didn’t watch it. I pointed to the people who did watch it, approvingly.

“Merely an associate professor”? What is your academic rank? I’m endlessly amused by people who diminish other people’s accomplishments while having none of their own, so I’m hoping you can entertain me.

Why did you feel that now was the time to talk about it, when the topic is how certain men think about women? Why didn’t you bring that up in any of the other posts on the first page that are about things other than world poverty? Why didn’t you think those things should be pushed aside to talk about world poverty instead? Why is it that you only decided poverty was the most important topic when the treatment of women was the topic under discussion? Why wasn’t poverty more important than New Year’s eve activities, or spiders, or Keith Kloor, or the death of a scientist, or 1950s ideas about nuclear war? No, not important than fucking new year’s eve plans, you didn’t go there and whine that people aren’t talking about the much more important topic of world poverty. Just here. Just when it’s about women. Think about why you did that.

It’s like they don’t notice those quotes that PZ is commenting on, which make most of his post.

If you don’t have evidence to back up your opinions, as was shown with PZ’s recent challenge to the Slymepit, then all you have is ridicule, scorn, attitude, and ignorance. Your OPINION must be heard and treated as gospel.

@58 – I’m with you Euclidwood. Stephen Jay Gould is frequently quote-mined by creationists for his comments regarding punctuated equilibrium and transitional fossils as though it supports their case when it does anything but. Should I take the degree to which Gould is quoted by creationists as indicating he has creationist sympathies?

Except that Stephen Jay Gould (as far as I know) doesn’t agree with the broader ideas behind creationism (e.g., biblical literalism), but there’s a fuckton of evidence that suggests an overlap between thunderf00t’s views on feminism and those of people in AVFM (as demonstrated by the fact that they’re praising the whole video rather than cherry-picking it).

The fact that there is no such overlap between thunderf00t’s (and AVFM’s) views on feminism and what feminism is in the real world is also important to note.

PZ, please watch Thunderf00t’s video before taking the first opportunity to link him with hateful misogynist nonsense. Once again you are strawmanning him.

There is no need to watch drivel, when the person has a history of presenting drivel, and the comments indicate nothing but more drivel. Why would you think otherwise? The implication is that you are a misogynists, and think TF has stated some evidenced truths that will convince PZ he is right. *snicker*. Nothing but evidenceless OPINION from TF.

PZ, really, watch his video. You might understand his perspective a bit more. He has no truck with these people – the only association is the one you have made. He can’t choose who praises him and who doesn’t.

Lets see…. I’m very amused that we once again see the same clips from skepticon 3 (was it?) taken without any of the preceding context. I’m also amused people accuse PZ of cherry picking when thunderf00t provides small snippets of videos to prove his point without even linking to the places where he got them. Colour me unimpressed and I demand 10minutes of my life back Matt125.

What I said was TF’s views on feminism (as suggested by his writings when he was here and what I saw of this video) overlap with AVFM’s views on feminism as some sort of conspiracy to stifle free speech and enshrine a PC-tyranny through witch hunts. Which is what he suggests in the video AVFM linked: he’s presenting certain events that happened over the course of the year without bothering to mention the context (e.g., why Harriet Hall’s tshirt would be problematic for some). He’s twisting facts to make his targets (Amy Roth and Rebecca Watson, among others) appear silly and illogical.

Much like AVFM suggests that feminism is both about silly and illogical ideas, and some sort of vast conspiracy. Is cargo-cult bigotry: they’re using words because they think it means something while being completely unaware of their true meaning.

Matt125 @ #80

You realize that this post isn’t about TF’s video, right? The problem is that when the views you hold are being praised by a group of reactionaries like AVFM, decent people would stop and think why this is the case. And we’re not talking about some concept that is broad enough to be meaningless (e.g., “in general, murder is bad”) or cherry-picking concepts (e.g., what creationists tend to do to demonstrate that evolution doesn’t work). We’re talking about TF’s view on feminism, which, as he states (in the title, no less) that feminism is “poisoning” atheism. This is a lot like MRA views about society being negatively impacted (poisoned?) by feminist influences, including that one yahoo suggesting that the Catholic fucking Church is a feminist organization.

TF has burned many bridges with PZ and with FTB in general. It will take a fairly impressive change of heart before any of the regulars feel interested in what he has to say.

The comments at AVFM indicate that he has not. It’s the same anti-woman sentiment he has expressed in the past. So for all of you criticizing the regulars here for “guilt by association,” let me ask you this: has TF changed his views, what new ideas does he contribute in this video, and how have the commenters at AVFM misrepresented his video?

Anyway, let’s all think about what might happen PZ, if someone were to examine you or examine atheism by looking at the commentators and your commentator policy, and your explicit encouragement of their behaviors.

I have watched some of his interviews and all he does is drop bombs in conversation, by demanding his religious opponents prove their points…

The gall! How dare he expect people to back up their claims? That’s just rude.

Where in ever-loving hell did folks get the idea that it’s invalid and outrageously wrong to form judgments about people based on who their friends and supporters are?

Guilt by association is only wrong if used as part of a logical argument, leading to a firm conclusion. It’s principle that often correct, but not reliably so. That makes is fallacious to use as part of a deductive argument, but it’s a very useful heuristic. As long as you recognize that you might be incorrect in your judgment and stay open to disconfirming evidence, it’s perfectly reasonable.

For example, it’s entirely possible that Thunderf00t might come out and condemn AVfM and distance himself from them. If he does, I won’t hold any of this against him. However, if he doesn’t…

I watched the video, and yes it is cringe inducing. This from a person, who otherwise likes Thunderf00t for other things. I am sort of amazed about how long he can be on tilt about this with running out of steam. He sort of slut shames Rebecca Watson with a photo of some guy putting a dollar in her bra. He also does that to PZ with that “sexy” card demonstration thing he did, and a pic of 2 blondes kissing him. I think he tries to make PZ out to be a hypocrite after badly mangling a quote of his saying, that there is a debate going on in the secular community about whether women are “fuck toys for privileged white men”. It was taken out of the context of the internet debate and the qualifier that PZ said “some” of the community. TF rants about it as if PZ said all of the privileged white men including PZ (from the pic)apparently believe that.

There is a lot of drama this topic generates that even sucks people in who aren’t a part of it. I know that people in meat space are concerned about it. It is a shame, because feminism is prevented form being discussed as rationally as the topic merits in the secular community as this video demonstrates.

A) readers who naively assume TF’s video and PZ’s response are one-time events with no history.
B) ‘pitters (or at least sypathetic to them) attempting to slime FTB

if A, please familiarize yourselves with the history before passing judgement. The search box is your friend.
I suggest using the keywords “feminism” or “Thunderf00t”. Also, read the posts thoroughly. You look
like idiots when you make bullshit accusations.

PZ, really, watch his video. You might understand his perspective a bit more. He has no truck with these people – the only association is the one you have made. He can’t choose who praises him and who doesn’t.

1.) TF has in the past made comments himself and approved of statements that clearly indicate such ideas, like him pointing to “Girl writes what” as somebody with reasonable views, you know, the woman who thinks that domestic violence is really cool.
2.) Well, if people with whom I want nothing to do start to praise me I’d think the hell about what I was saying.

IMHO I think PZ should watch it, because some respectable people take TF seriously. It also needs so serious rebutting and may help people understand better why feminists have such a hard time getting through to otherwise rational people.

It also needs so serious rebutting and may help people understand better why feminists have such a hard time getting through to otherwise rational people.

Quit telling PZ what to do, and have a go about rebutting it yourself. There are lots of feminist skeptics who can pick up the ball, and make a name for themselves. If they don’t, they can’t complain about the same old names always speaking at cons…

Lilandra, why don’t you and Aron do some rebutting? And if you’ve already done so (and TF won’t even hear critique from his actual friends) why in the world do you think him or any of his frothing followers would listen to PZ?

Seriously—where is your head at? It’s way, way past time to rethink your view of your friend TF. Are you able to entertain the idea that he’s not the person you thought he was (and clearly still want vainly for him to be)?

I am simply making a suggestion. No one can really tell PZ what to do. IMO PZ has good reasons for not watching it like lending credence to his arguments. However, my take on it is that it is an opportunity to address misconceptions like when you take down a Ken Ham argument. It doesn’t persuade Ken Ham that he is being irrational, but it does persuade a few of the rational people who would otherwise be misled.

OK I watched it. TF has learned well from his dealings with creationists; he cherry picks and quote mines like the best of them…

Interestingly, one of TF’s beefs is PZ’ s comment (taken out of context) about how some in the atheist community think women should be ““fuck toys for privileged white men”. And his video gets picked up by Paul Elam, an atheist mysogynist who pretty much says exactly that…which kind of proves that point.

And of course PZ isn’t judging the video itself here; he’s noting the enthusiasm for it among people who really do think that women are inferior and giving them respect and rights is bad. When your work is giving those people something to cheer about you really might want to rethink what you’re doing….

may help people understand better why feminists have such a hard time getting through to otherwise rational people

I would like to point out that there’s a good amount of research on psychology that deals (more or less) with this. Of particular interest is System Justification theory, which states that everybody has a motivation to see the status quo as good (or at least, as good as it gets) and therefore any challenges to the status quo generate a reflexive need to defend it (i.e., to justify it). Furthermore, this effect appears regardless of the individual’s position in a particular hierarchy, so that regardless of whether the status quo is beneficial or detrimental to the individual, the impulse to justify it will arise.

And then you have good ol’ classic individual-level characteristics such as authoritarianism and social dominance orientation.

1. When I first read the post I thought the quotes were actually from Thunderfoot, whoever he is. I’m new and not privy to the whole thing, so I am probably missing something. But associating comments with someone is silly. His “video” can live and die on its own merits if it has any. I watched a little bit of it and it was a bit too self-righteous and boring.

2. I think it is dumb to say that feminism (or men’s right’s movements -menism?) is poisoning atheism. It does strike me that the tone of discussion is poisoning atheism. Perhaps because so much of it happens on the internet, where people seem to lose their filters of decency and common sense. It isn’t enough to disagree with someone, you also have to insult them and their family and their history. One of the things so attractive about atheism is that in theory you can discuss things and arrive to answers in a more or less free fashion. It is disappointing when people try to limit that using old tricks.

Having looked over at least the first bit of the video, I can say that I would think TFoot was clueless about women’s issues in general.

I would think that, if I didn’t know how long, and how hard, people have tried to educate him on this issue.

He makes the statement several times that the reason for the ‘buddy system’ was that women felt they were in danger, or feared for their lives. Interestingly, the clips he uses to back up this point… don’t actually say that. They don’t show people cowering, or in fear. They show people who look like they’re tired of being resigned to being harassed, and are looking for a temporary solution to it, but they don’t look afraid.
In other words, his primary initial point appears to be a combination of “I didn’t see anything, so it can’t be all that bad,” and “If only these silly women would just behave sensibly like men me, they’d be a lot better off.”

It’s yet another guy telling women that they aren’t sensible enough to know what their problems are. Another guy telling women that the problem they have with being told what to do by men is that they aren’t really doing what men are telling them to do.
Men like him, that is.
Specific men.
The good men.
The men that really do know best and have women’s best interests in mind, regardless of the wayward feminist thought their fluffy pink ladybrains almost inevitably lead them to.
Never does the thought cross his mind, apparently, that the women involved might actually know what they are talking about.

That’s not as bad as many of the comments.
But it’s certainly not good.

Well ok it’ll just be in the comments but lets start breaking this down.

0:00-0:20 Shows a list of the people who contributed to SPEAKING OUT AGAINST HATE DIRECTED AT WOMEN saying he’s sickened that they were bullied into this PC appeasement.

He provides no evidence that they were bullied into making these posts (I know some of them were eager to contribute).

0:24 We have Harriet Hall’s Tshit “I feel safe and welcome at TAM” saying like people who find tshirts like these offensive enough to reduce them to tears.

Does not provide context as to the reasons namely that people saw it as minimizing their concerns and fears. A kind of subtext of I don’t see a problem so what’s wrong with you approach. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

0:35 Claims of using copyright to stiffle free speech
Using someone elses photo without their permission is a copy right violation if they don’t want you to use it they can say so and they are in the right. You can still make your claims without it.

0:45-1:00 People who think that fake jewlery and not offending people should be classed as harrassment at conventions on par with physical gropeing.

“all we’re saying it we want rules that say making fake jewlery and intentionally offending people is not ok nor is grabbing someones ass.”

This does not say that they are on par it does say they are both wrong just like Genocide and shoplifting are not on the same scale but are both wrong. A convention is not the rest of the world and can have more stringent rules (its a private event). For example there’s nothing illegal about wearing a tshrit with a rape joke on it but the people running a convention don’t have to let you into their event if you’re wearing it. It is after all their event. Similarly jewelry made to imitate that of someone else that personally attacks that person is an attempt to bully them instead of engaging in their position. I have a hard time seeing why a community that prides itself on rational discourse would want to support that.

Ok there’s a break down of the first minute. I’m going to take a break and maybe come back with the second minute of claims later. All quotes are approximate as I really such at transcribing video (hats off to those who can do it better).

How do you not understand this: Thunderf00t isn’t arguing against equal rights for women or that harassment of women is okay. He’s just arguing that many people such as yourself are exaggerating the amount of harassment experienced by women at conferences and vilifying anyone who points out this exaggeration. The correct way to respond to his argument isn’t to sneer about how ridiculous it is to think women shouldn’t have equal rights, but to present evidence that harassment is, in fact, a problem at these conferences.

Of particular interest is System Justification theory, which states that everybody has a motivation to see the status quo as good (or at least, as good as it gets) and therefore any challenges to the status quo generate a reflexive need to defend it (i.e., to justify it).

It sounds like it’s related to the Just World fallacy. Basically, humans want the world to make sense, so if the world is a certain way, there must be some really good reason for why it is that way. If we have the capacity to change the world for the better, we suddenly have to ask ourselves why we haven’t already done so.
I freely admit, it’s hard sometimes to cope with the fact that humanity is composed of semi-rational, half-educated apes with big guns, divided into groups that all hate each other for no apparent reason, each group ruled by whoever has the most bloated ego.
Sometimes, you really want someone to just tell you it’s all under control and not worry about it.

TF is likely not to listen to me or Aron and take it personally. Matt Dillahunty tried to reason with him as did Aron and I. He took Matt’s response to him way too seriously. He even put a stab at Matt in his video for Matt’s banning of people form his facebook for derailing a post about feminism.

I would get involved provided it would do any good, and not generate anymore drama.

Esteleth, it starts at about seven minutes in and is from a Google+ talk that you did with Rebecca Watson. It is a longish bit and he is using it to claim that feminists are busy trying to redefine words.

No evidence will be enough. It will be discounted, called “anecdote” (as if that means that the thing that happened to one woman that she relates wasn’t actually real because no one did a study on it), it will be called “overreaction,” it will be called “demonizing,” it will be called “too sensitive.”

Nothing will be enough. Nothing. It won’t matter if you scream the evidence or hand it to them with a spoon of honey. The important thing is not to have the backs of any of these women who actually suffer.

TF is likely not to listen to me or Aron and take it personally. Matt Dillahunty tried to reason with him as did Aron and I. He took Matt’s response to him way too seriously. He even put a stab at Matt in his video for Matt’s banning of people form his facebook for derailing a post about feminism.

I would get involved provided it would do any good, and not generate anymore drama.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t use the term “friend” to describe someone who’s so vindictive and unhinged that he’ll stab at anyone who even tries to talk to him.

TF is likely not to listen to me or Aron and take it personally. Matt Dillahunty tried to reason with him as did Aron and I. He took Matt’s response to him way too seriously. He even put a stab at Matt in his video for Matt’s banning of people form his facebook for derailing a post about feminism.

I would get involved provided it would do any good, and not generate anymore drama.

That confirms that any commentary by PZ (or, really, anyone at all who has a critique of TFoot) won’t make a bit of difference. The marginal number of onlookers who might be convinced, well, I’m sorry. I don’t see it.

The tone from the Slymepit and the misogynists is poisoning atheism. All they have is attitude and misogyny. If they have evidenced points, please link to said evidence. Until you understand things better, consider lurking and not trying to contribute your ignorance.

@michaeld That might be true, but the tone of this post is one which suggests that Thunderf00t doesn’t agree with equal rights for women, rather than one which suggests that Thunderf00t simply doesn’t understand how big a problem harassment is at the conferences.

Thunderf00t – and the others – have been presented with evidence. Their response has been to criticize it, belittle it and the women who have presented it, and dismiss it as “not bad enough” to warrant attention.

His clip of me talking is like three minutes long! In a ten minute video. I don’t know if I should be flattered or horrified.

Presumably all these idiots decrying PZ for not watching the video have all read all the works of the feminists they criticize, right? I mean, if you haven’t read everything they wrote, or heard everything they ever said, how could you ever criticize someone? Ever? Cherry pickingz!!!11!!

I mean, I’ve never eaten a pie filled with dog shit and Arby’s. I am pretty certain it’s not going to be tasty though. There’s plenty of outside evidence to support the theory, and if the only other things that will eat it are Carrion Crawlers then I can make some safe conclusions.

However, my take on it is that it is an opportunity to address misconceptions like when you take down a Ken Ham argument. It doesn’t persuade Ken Ham that he is being irrational, but it does persuade a few of the rational people who would otherwise be misled.

But those supposedly rational people wouldn’t listen to PZed’s critique anyhow. Those who would, have already made their minds up about Thunderf00t. What you need is someone who has the respect (or at least the ear) of that audience who still gives Tf00t the time of day to do the debunking.

It is not that I haven’t criticized TF to his face or even here right now. So obviously I would criticize him. The focus of any rebuttal would be derailed by the fact that we are his friends. PZ doesn’t have those constraints if he makes a well argued post. We may consider addressing this in a video podcast, so it doesn’t get drug out with the back and forth and misquoting that goes on in written posts. Aron and I didn’t generate this drama, and I would only discuss it if it helped promote a more welcoming environment to women in the skepticl community. Otherwise, it isn’t worth the trouble.

The correct way to respond to his argument isn’t to sneer about how ridiculous it is to think women shouldn’t have equal rights, but to present evidence that harassment is, in fact, a problem at these conferences.

Such evidence has been presented, multiple times. TF et al. has decided, in the best tradition of creationists and libertarians everywhere, to ignore and dismiss the evidence presented because it doesn’t support his preconceived notions.

Lilandra, something’s really wrong with your perspective if you continue to count as a friend someone who, by your words, reacted so viciously to a critique from a friend. Not my business, but I find it odd and disturbing that you’re not more bothered by your “friend”‘s character. Do you really think you or Aron won’t be targets at some point? Is this a man whose judgment and ethics you trust?

I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to create an MRA ‘profile’ either. I doubt that men who agree with the MRA ideology have had fewer sex partners or a larger number of divorces than men on average. I guess it could be that the bulk of the comments on MRA blogs are posted by men who could be described as incompetent failures, because they have time and mental energy to spare, but I think you’ll find that the same attitudes and ideas are just as prevalent among men who earn above median wage or men who are valued by their coworkers.

It’s not like you magically pick up and understanding of things like sociology and politics and history by being successful in life.

1:00-1:25
Proffessional victims going conference to conference saying the SH was so bad they were putting their lives on the line meerly by turning up. (cut to video of rebecca) You can’t trust the cops, you can’t trust the people who hang out at you at these events you can’t trust the leaders of our community to give a damn.

There is no support for the idea that they are putting their lives on the line turning up but it would hardly be surprising if someone who receives threats from member of a community is at least a little on edge showing up at conventions of that community.

1:25-1:43 SH so bad the skepchicks had to go around in pairs (cue clip of rebecca) So at the conference all the skpchick writers who were there instituted a buddy system were we always travelled together or with a male escort especially when returning to our rooms at night.

There is only the one line, no citation or any other context as to what else was being said. If you’re receiving threats of sexual or physical abuse and you decide to be proactive about your safety when conventions don’t have SH policies I guess that’s bad? Also amusing given the many ways I’ve seen people try to dismiss claims of harassment of can you prove it at least here you’d have a second witness to the event but I guess that to would be wrong?

1:43 – 2:00
“Even though of course the SH was so bad these poor defensless women might not even have known they were being harassed unless there was a feminist organisation there that could educate them about just what a horrible SH they weren’t even aware of was.”

The idea that one can grow up in an enviroment and not notice the problems there in and associate them as normal isn’t a terribly new idea. If you go around on the street being accosted by men daily as part of street harassment you can just take it as a given as part of life and not as something sexist that only affects one sex. Just like a new atheist in the states may not realize the problems with starting a town council meeting with a prayer unless someone explains the constitutional law that it breaks.

Cue clip of PZ in a google+ discussion but I’ll maybe continue in a bit. Feel free to add arguements points etc.

the tone of this post is one which suggests that Thunderf00t doesn’t agree with equal rights for women, rather than one which suggests that Thunderf00t simply doesn’t understand how big a problem harassment is at the conferences.

T-foot has blindered himself to the harassment issue and has spent a considerable amount of time contributing to the harassment, and providing a platform for harassment. That is solid evidence that T-foot doesn’t support equal rights for women.

IMO it is a matter of perception with him. He is now entrenched in this position and quite defensive of it after it escalated out of control. Much of this is his own doing. I am not sure he has ever in his life been convinced by another person he is wrong about anything much less publicly where it is more humiliating. We tried privately, he is quite stubbornly fixated by this.

Thanks for your synopsis. Much appreciated. It’s saving at least me from watching the thing. Just one request: Can you differentiate your summary of what the vid says with your commentary (e.g. put your stuff in italics or synopsis in bold)?

IMO it is a matter of perception with him. He is now entrenched in this position and quite defensive of it after it escalated out of control. Much of this is his own doing. I am not sure he has ever in his life been convinced by another person he is wrong about anything much less publicly where it is more humiliating. We tried privately, he is quite stubbornly fixated by this.

So, what makes him any kind of a skeptic, or more importantly, a friend?

Unfortunately for the argument some of you are making, I have zero interest in debating either Thunderf00t (he’d be throwing the straw so thickly I’d probably come down with terminal hay fever) or JohnTheOther (deadly dull psycho so in love with his own words he’d try to drown me in tedious loquaciousness). Both have discredited themselves as tools of a patriarchal pathology. That’s why I don’t watch either of their macho ideological videos, and why you aren’t going to convince me to start.

Could you be clearer about what you mean by that?
Do you mean conflict? There are differences of opinion. Unless you insist one side automatically defer to the other, there will be conflict.

Do you mean emotion? This is a real issue that really hurts real people. That’s a good cause for emotion, big, wide, powerful, strong emotion.

It may not be the case with you, but a worrisome number of people who are opposed to ‘drama’ seem to be saying “Don’t rock the boat – rational people don’t like commotion.”
This, of course, automatically puts the people rocking the boat in the opposite category. It suggests that they are being irrational, letting their emotions somehow prevent them from thinking. Or thinking ‘clearly’.

It is not hard to see that this has long been a lynchpin of men’s oppression of women. That the women needed, and secretly wanted, a sensible, a rational, a male voice to guide them. It’s the White Man’s Burden all over again, but along gender lines.

Let me quickly say I’m not accusing you of any of this. I’m honestly asking you what you mean by drama, and why you think it’s bad, and I’ll listen to your answer (if you care to).
But I have seen what others in this argument mean by it, and I’m hoping you don’t agree with them.

“How do you not understand this: Thunderf00t isn’t arguing against equal rights for women or that harassment of women is okay.”

Interesting then, how so many of his MRA cheerleaders seem to think that he is.

There are always some idiots who will misread anything (we’ve had a few show up in this thread), but at a certain point, I would think someone who was being “misinterpreted” so persistently by such vile people would give some thought to communicating his views more clearly.

Have you ever had a friend that you could not discuss a topic with? They are irretrievably wrong, so you agree to disagree. For example, a fundamentalist, religious friend or relative, who is otherwise inoffensive. On other matters, he has done a great deal of good. It makes this video much more galling.

Have you ever had a friend that you could not discuss a topic with? They are irretrievably wrong, so you agree to disagree.

This isn’t disagreement on a trivial topic. This is a core ethical belief. Not to mention his appalling behaviour. Grandpa thinks the world is 6000 years old? Who really cares. Grandpa disowns his gay grandson, hangs out with the gay bashers on Saturday nights, and goes marching with Fred Phelps? Even if he gives to the foodbank every Thanksgiving, there’s no excuse for saying he’s a great guy and you just want to get along and not generate drama. You make a stand.

I am a boat rocker, and it has cost me dearly personally. That is not what I am worried about, because that is the way I am and my core values are not going to change. I consider drama as generating trouble to personally hurt people normally for petty reasons. I consider this video to be drama. I don’t see a good reason for him making it.

I don’t want people hurting my family for getting involved. If it would help women feel more welcome in the community to rebut it, it would be worth the trouble. If it gets drowned out in the cacophony it would be a useless and pathetic attempt and not worth the trouble.

Where in ever-loving hell did folks get the idea that it’s invalid and outrageously wrong to form judgments about people based on who their friends and supporters are?

Because it’s been used for questionable purposes for a long time. The Joe McCarthy communist hunts was pretty much entirely guilt-by-association. There were also constant attempts to link the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. with the communists, who constantly denied such a link existed.

Despite this history, it seems the link here is far more apt in this case. Anti-feminist groups, such as AVFM, like something that is explicitly anti-feminist? Quelle surprise. He might not be going as far as they are, but it’s hardly a stretch to find parallels between TF claiming that feminists are taking over atheist organizations to AVFM’s constant complaints that feminists are taking over everything.

That’s why I don’t watch either of their macho ideological videos, and why you aren’t going to convince me to start.

This ideology just really baffles me. The idea that if you don’t like an opponents perspective you avoid coming in to contact with it and attempt to critique it blind is amongst the most absurd I have ever come across (and not the first time i have heard you or your house trolls make it)

I know you like to debunk releigion and it seriously concerns me that you haven’t the faintest idea what is involved: do you go out your way to ignore WLC, Plantinga, Comfort? Perhaps indulge in Ehrman, Finkelstein and R E Friedman but avowedly make sure you avoid wasting a single moment considering the counter cases because you know they will be wrong.

However full of shit you think Thunderf00t is (and god knows I have laid in to his videos enough times over the years) to not watch it is both ignorant and stupid.

Jim
of course i could be wrong here, obviously I am responding to this blog entry of yours having not read it /sarcasm off

Well, all the more reason you must hang on to this one friend who thinks enhancing women’s safety with anti-harassment rules are not worth his personal freedom to gnaw on ankles in the bar after he’s done a good days’ work arguing with people who think a 600 year old man filled a boat with dinosaurs.

I think it’s important you keep messaging why it’s reasonable for you as skeptic and scientist to excoriate and dismiss critics that you state you won’t read, listen to, or debate.

Nobody needs to read fuckwittted idjits to know that they are still fuckwittted idjists given the uncritical support of yourself and the slymepitters. Only a delusional idjit would think otherwise. Why do you?

Have you ever had a friend that you could not discuss a topic with? They are irretrievably wrong, so you agree to disagree.

You just said you don’t think anyone has EVER convinced TF that he was wrong about something.
So you should rephrase your question to something more along the lines of

“Have you ever had a friend that you could not discuss any topic with that he has a different opinion on? They are so irretrievably wrong, that everyone who has any differing opinion on any topic has to agree to disagree?”

The answer would be no. I’ve never had a friend like that.
I’ve known a couple of people like that.
Them being like that is why they were never friends.

I would think someone who was being “misinterpreted” so persistently by such vile people would give some thought to communicating his views more clearly.

Especially since, in the FtB debacle, he consistently claimed that everybody was misunderstanding what he was saying. Maybe he’d want to be a little more clear in the future or have someone to run things by before publishing. You know, “read this and tell me what you think I’m saying.”

If everybody always misunderstands you, at a certain point you’re going to have to consider the possibility that the problem lies with you, not everyone else.

Back when this debacle started and TFoot made his first anti-feminist video months ago, I left a comment about how all that we were proposing were useful anti-harassment policies that organizers could use to help protect the attendees and in response I got a stream of comments claiming things such as “You’re trying to criminalize flirting,” and “It’s not harassment if the woman says no and we keep flirting with her, she’s just playing ‘hard to get,'” or “I’m not harassing women. They’re just shy; they’ll open up to me if I keep flirting with them.” Men like these who support TFoot do so because TFoot himself voices these same bullshit sentiments. They feel entitled to talk to whatever woman they want, however they want, because if they aren’t raping her, they aren’t harassing her. They’re assholes. They’re poisoning the skeptical and atheist communities and fuck you if you say they aren’t.

In this video, after the short out-of-context Rebecca Watson clip, TFoot implies that women who report being harassed are deluded by feminists into seeing harassment where there is none. How convenient that TFoot and others believe they can say anything they like to a woman and if the woman tries to report them, they can write it off as feminist propaganda. It’s fucking sick. It’s just a step away from a rape apology; after all, it’s the woman’s fault if she’s offended; it’s the woman’s fault if she says no to my advances. She should have just said yes and let me continue because we both know she wanted it, it’s those damned feminists who brainwashed her into not wanting to have sex with me. I’m the victim!

Micaeld -you are doing a great job showing that there is nothing particularly damning is this video of PZ. It is a collection of quote mines and cherry picks. It can be hard for people to turn their emotions down a little bit and watch this especially because he is trying to provoke a response. It was hard for me, but I did because I know that rational people are being misled by it. Look at what is going on in the post PZ just made about Michael Nugent.

ok minute 3…. (I keep meaning to take longer breaks….). This minute is mostly one clip so I’ll keep it together then comment at the end. I have added a few notes in brackets

2:00-2:12

clip of PZ rebecca et al on google plus no citation given. PZ startes reading ” “I’ve hung around with atheists and skeptics and I’ve never encountered this problem that being sexism or misogyny. ” his name is rick obviously”

There’s a subtle cut in the clip (especially if you’re listening) so the video continues tho doesn’t directly follow from the previous. Though if you’re listening to it it does seem to flow rather well together.

2:12 -2:40

Pz again “I suspect he’s flat chested that’s you know…”

Rebecca then cuts in “you know but it’s also important to remember there are also women in these communities who have never experienced who would say they’ve never experienced sexism. That’s not to say I’m implying they’re lying more that I think there are a lot of things that are part of a misogynist culture (at this point blue text reading “what? a woman hateing culture appear”) that go unnoticed by most women unoticed by me for most of my 20 (white text this time “but somehow the ladies don’t notice it?”)

See my previous minute, you can grow up in a culture and not realise the ways it is harming you or is otherwise skewed. Just like you can grow up not noticing all the bunk medicine around you. Homeopathy is just natural herbal remedies right? Education by others who’ve seen through these things is sometimes needed to make you think.

2:40- 3:04 thunderfoot “Those who suggest with a straight face that there is actually an active debate in the secular community at the comment as to whether women are fuck toys and eye candy for privileged white men or are equally colleagues. Yup apparently the debate is taking place in exactly those binary term with no other positions available. You see PZ myers said so”

3:04-3:34
clip of PZ myers once again no citation for the event. Right now for instance the internet community is wracked with these paroxysms of arguments over of all things the status of women. We’re trying to decide whether women are eye candy and fuck toys for privileged white men or whether they are colleagues together in this movement. And I would have said some time ago that’s easy that’s settled we know what the answer to that. We’re equal partners in this effort but surprisingly uh that debate is going on on the internet right now.

He is at least right that there are a variety of positions (though in commenting on evolution v creationism one rarely spells out all the variations for example). Fuck toys and eye candy is a bit hyperbolic but if women honestly are colleagues (a word I may actually have learned how to spell by the time this is over)
then one should expect that when a group of them start bringing concerns to you that you address them thoughtfully a seriously. Unlike say the first minute of this video where several different events were brushed over with seemingly no attempt on your part to understand why people were bothered by them. If you won’t take their opinions seriously when they raise them then it’s hard to dodge the idea you just want them around to look pretty and back up positions you already hold.

—–
Next chunk in a bit once I see how my tags worked and I get a little break from this.

If someone tells me that Thunderf00t’s video has some new, original, legitimate argument that isn’t the same ol’ “let me gnaw on women’s legs” shit; if Thunderf00t ever has as much influence on this issue as Comfort or Ham do on creationism; if I’m ever looking for major lolz and don’t have tendinitis stabbing me with a flaming dagger in the heel all day long; then maybe I’ll bother with watching it.

Telling me I have some kind of obligation to watch every asshole banging on about me on youtube is ridiculous. Have you noticed how many of those cretins are out there, and how repetitive and ‘noxious their claims are? Tf00t is only one of thousands, and he’s got less credibility on issues of equality than some random mullethead yanked out of a Hooters and put in front of a camera.

FWIW I’d appreciate it if PZ would watch and respond to TF’s video. Having said that I understand him not wanting to “debate” further – conversation around this having already gone on at length. But to that point, why bring it up at all with this post? I mean, TF has already been marginalized on FTB to the point that there’s no margin left.

I feel somewhat bad for actually watching Thunderfoot’s dumb ass video. My recommendation is to just avoid it. Its mostly the same crap you have seen before. He fancies himself a defender of free speech. As an example he brings up Surly Amy’s complaints about fake jewelry. I had to do some digging to figure out what that was about. Basically at TAM a bunch of assholes created fake Surly jewelry which mocked her for thinking rape jokes aren’t funny. They did other crap too. I think it is reasonable to say that any clothing/jewelry that endorses rape jokes should get you kicked out of any convention I want to be a part of, but Thunderfoot thinks free speech means “you can’t kick me out of your house just because I called your wife ugly”.

How ’bout woo and medicine? And people’s absurd views and clinging-to-woo-in-the-face-of-science?

Yes, please.

Because it’s been used for questionable purposes for a long time. The Joe McCarthy communist hunts was pretty much entirely guilt-by-association. There were also constant attempts to link the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. with the communists, who constantly denied such a link existed.

The point that knives have been used for murder for a long time doesn’t mean they aren’t good for chopping up carrots.
The thing is that in a somewhat rational world you’d simply acknowledge that you agree on a certain point with group X, that you have different points about point Y and then move on. I have no problem agreeing and campaigning with the German Lutheran church on anti-poverty actionism. I will not deny anti-poverty actionism because some christians also work in that field.
But I’m sick and tired of people who totally claim not to be like hateful group Z while saying the exact same shit like hateful group Z and totally never saying anything against hateful group Z.

noelplum

However full of shit you think Thunderf00t is (and god knows I have laid in to his videos enough times over the years) to not watch it is both ignorant and stupid.

Because apparently every idiot is entitled to people listening to them.
Oh, wait, it’s you, Jim.
Nevermind…

michaeld

3:04-3:34…
PZ says:
Right now for instance the internet community is wracked with these paroxysms of arguments over of all things the status of women. We’re trying to decide whether women are eye candy and fuck toys for privileged white men or whether they are colleagues together in this movement. And I would have said some time ago that’s easy that’s settled we know what the answer to that. We’re equal partners in this effort but surprisingly uh that debate is going on on the internet right now.

Just keep this in mind when he later bemoans how some sexual harassment policy bans sexualized clothes. Of course, women are not eye candy but why should I pay for a conference if there’s no eye candy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but Thunderfoot thinks free speech means “you can’t kick me out of your house just because I called your wife ugly”.

Defenders of “freeze peach” think their OPINIONS can’t be criticized. “True free speech” means I can criticize your inane OPINION. Funny how that works, and they aren’t quite the defenders they believe themselves to be.

@PZ TF’s gripe is taken seriously by some in the community in real life. Not just MRAs. I am surprised you haven’t run across some of them. However, you do have good reasons not to address it like responding to a deliberate provocation to a flame war. So I will politely take my 2 cents off the table.

“If someone tells me that Thunderf00t’s video has some new, original, legitimate argument that isn’t the same ol’ “let me gnaw on women’s legs” shit; if Thunderf00t ever has as much influence on this issue as Comfort or Ham do on creationism; if I’m ever looking for major lolz and don’t have tendinitis stabbing me with a flaming dagger in the heel all day long; then maybe I’ll bother with watching it.

Telling me I have some kind of obligation to watch every asshole banging on about me on youtube is ridiculous. Have you noticed how many of those cretins are out there, and how repetitive and ‘noxious their claims are? Tf00t is only one of thousands, and he’s got less credibility on issues of equality than some random mullethead yanked out of a Hooters and put in front of a camera.”

It’s one thing to ignore people entirely. You probably have so much email that like others you truly can’t respond to it all.

It’s another thing to ignore people that groups you dislike point out they regard as important people. Israel couldn’t ignore Arafat. Obama couldn’t ignore Romney.

And it’s another thing entirely for you to claim to ignore people that you spend a great deal of energy bashing, disparaging, dismissing on the grounds that these people are not important, and don’t speak for anyone, and that there are better opponents out there anyway.

For one, the time and vigor you spend bashing them contradicts your claim you have no time or energy to read their argument. Two, you do not get to tell a group who represents them.

Feminists, your true representative is now Sarah Palin. Nancy Pelosi will not be ignored.
Atheists, your true representative is now Peter Higgs. Richard Dawkins has been deprecated.

One of Thunderf00t’s big ideas, apparently, is that were it not for the awful feminists labeling “harmless” behavior as sexual harassment, then conventions and events would devolve into a cheerful happy flirtathon.

Because hearing stuff described as bad warps women’s brains, apparently.

Yes, ThunderingFool is trying to omit that he is fine with people organizing in order to tell rape jokes. To a woman who, for years, helped to get women who otherwise could not afford it, to attend TAM.

Telling me I have some kind of obligation to watch every asshole banging on about me on youtube is ridiculous.

Not all of them PZ. Just the ones you are responding to.

It is like reviewing albums. You don’t have to listen to every album released yo review one album (in case you hadn’t realised, which it sounds like you haven’t) but if you start off with ‘So Phil Collins has released a new album and it probably sounds the same as all his others – i haven’t bothered listening to it so let’s just assume it does and take it from there’ then you are acting like an idiot not a sceptic.

It has to be said your whole argument here based on ‘guilt by association’ is ridiculous. Any neo-nazi in the UK who wants her vote to count will vote Conservative; any communist who wants his vote to count will vote Labour. Do you REALLY think that fact tells us ANYTHING about the policies of either party other than which one of them is fractionally to the right of the other?

Perhaps you should retitle this blog “55 year old man makes personal revelation that all political positions attract extremists”?

Let’s be honest the radfems (and i am NOT calling anyone here a radfem, when i use the term I an referring to the misandristic trans-hating nutjobs) would all side with you: should I let that colour my perception of your position or tar you with a brush of their loading? No, I shouldn’t and I wouldn’t.
I think this blog entry is bad enough to do thunderf00t proud.

Fuck it, olivercrangle. Read my link at 193 and tell me again why any of us needs to dissect ThunderingFool’s claims yet again.

Just because you have not been around and know jack shit about what is going on does not mean that you dictact how any of us should respond. Most of us already know what ThunderingFool is doing. This is nothing new.

It’s not that he makes an intelligent argument. He is more a prominent spokesperson for the wrong side. He argues that harassment issues are always spoken of in binary terms. But he then exaggerates his opponents position to radical feminism in fear for their lives at conferences and makes his own position as free speech defender. He makes a binary argument where he is the only person you could possibly side with or you are for censorship. In absence of good information, he is spreading misinformation.

I don’t like to see people misled. I think that more people can be convinced that his position is wrong. Watson says in the video that she didn’t see harassment as the problem it was when she was younger. Those are the types of people that need to hear why his argument is wrong.

There is a lot of drama this topic generates that even sucks people in who aren’t a part of it. I know that people in meat space are concerned about it.

lilandra@189:

TF’s gripe is taken seriously by some in the community in real life

Good heavens! In MEAT SPACE, which is REAL LIFE? Well, now it’s getting serious. Because, after all, nothing said on the internet matters. (I guess that attitude probably helps salve the cognitive dissonance of calling someone like TF your “friend” — after all, all that hate was only spewed on the internet, and didn’t sully the dignity of your “real life.”)

“Women, WILL NEVER BE EQUAL TO MEN!
I don’t care how they put it, because the simple overwhelming fact throughout the history of Mankind, is that women have NEVER been equal to men and they never will be.”

Wow. As I was reading that, I replaced “women” with “Blacks” and “men” with “Whites”. Very chilling that there are prejudiced people out there who feel this way in 2012. Looks like some of us have decided that inequality is worth fighting for.

Props to PZ and others for exposing these monsters. They should be shunned from polite society.

At 4:50 he shows your behavior with an unidentified female and identifies your behavior with her as sexual harassment, and states “if anyone else did this they would be crucified for their ‘sexually inappropriate behavior’ by the PC police.

He then shows a clip of Rebecca Watson pulling her tank top down to allow a man to place money into her cleavage.

He makes the point that the two of you, encourage, if not outright demand or write, various sexual harassment policies for conferences that would nail both of you. And that the two of you and your friends constantly harass other people for behaviors that you excuse and rationalize for yourselves.

The whole thing is well done and deserving of response. Your name calling and dismissal of this video cannot be described as “intellectually honest”.

‘So Phil Collins has released a new album and it probably sounds the same as all his others – i haven’t bothered listening to it so let’s just assume it does and take it from there’

How about, “I’ve heard enough Collins that I’m not interested in the album, but hey, look at this weird phenomenon: a gang of neo-Nazis love it”?

I’m not commenting on this other Phil’s video — I’m talking about the weird MRA angle. I am not responding to whatever he says in the video — I find it more interesting that an anti-feminist hate site finds it copacetic.

How about if all you apologists stop blustering about Tf00t and look honestly at these radical and bizarre MRAs that want to appropriate science and atheism as supportive of their ideology? Or isn’t that important, because it just victimizes women?

Non sequitur. Even if it were salient, it would not therefore be deserving of a response. Trillions of salient things happen every day. Time for responses is far more limited. Therefore salience is not sufficient to show that something is deserving of a response.

Mind you, given that I am a ‘bigot’, ‘misogynist’, an ‘MRA’ or in PZ’s words simply ‘scum’ I don’t see why I can’t play fast and loose with definitions (at least i tried to qualify what I meant with mine)

Olivercrangle: How about if you provide evidence that we’re trying to institute a “PC police” and that we’re going to silence all conversation about sex, and are telling people that sexual behavior is prohibited?

So Darrel Ray is going to be banned from conferences? So is Greta Christina? Is the clip in that video a reference to my Skepticon talk in which I used recombination in a deck of cards as a metaphor for sex? Because if you actually watched any of that talk, you quickly discover that my public discussion of sex on a stage in front of a thousand people was actually about genetics, recombination, and the odd rules of sex that lead to strange shufflings of genes.

Seriously, you idiots keep pushing this notion that all of the feminists are puritanical prudes who want to force you poor oppressed men to keep your penises in your pants at all times, when it’s nothing like that. Mutually agreed upon, consensual sex between two equals is a lovely and entirely acceptable thing. Poonhounds raging through bars and demanding that women serve their needs…not at all appropriate.

Fair enough PZ, there isn’t a specific point I’d like you to address in TF’s video. I’m simply interested in your perspective as someone who, in the past, has had a lot to say on the subject and is influential in the atheist/skeptic/free-thought communities.

Your perspective on the content of the video itself, as opposed to the person delivering the content (independent of his message), is what would be useful.

Telling me I have some kind of obligation to watch every asshole banging on about me on youtube is ridiculous. Have you noticed how many of those cretins are out there, and how repetitive and ‘noxious their claims are? Tf00t is only one of thousands, and he’s got less credibility on issues of equality than some random mullethead yanked out of a Hooters and put in front of a camera.

You are correct in that the video is neither original nor especially interesting.
But when you draw conclusions, make claims about “the company you keep” as proof for conclusions, you more or less obligated yourself.

random mullethead yanked out of a Hooters and put in front of a camera.

There there…. Some say fat people are lazy, and that intelligence suffers from unhealthy eating habits. So you see the labeling and name calling, regardless it being you or “mullethead”, is a slippery slope serving no purpose to any discussion.

Mind you, given that I am a ‘bigot’, ‘misogynist’, an ‘MRA’ or in PZ’s words simply ‘scum’ I don’t see why I can’t play fast and loose with definitions (at least i tried to qualify what I meant with mine)

I can only go by your writings here. Your comments. I have no idea whether you are bigoted, misogynist, an MRA supporter or scum in real life. Based on your comments on this thread, and on previous ones, I would tend to agree with those labels.

I have no idea whether ThunderFoot is as anti-woman as he comes across in some of his writings and videos. At the very least, he has been provided with evidence that he is wrong about sexual harassment at atheist conferences, that he is wrong about the effectiveness of published anti-harassment policies at conferences, and that he is removing quotes from their relevant context and still insists that there is no possibility that there is even a chance that he could be wrong. Now, one of his videos was linked, with approval, by an extreme men’s rights group. That, alone, should set off alarm bells.

Flirting, and crude jokes are not banned. Because they are not in and of themselves harassment.

What is harassment is when one of the parties does not welcome it.

Seriously.

The issue is consent, and the lack of it.

Exactly.

And this is precisely why TF doesn’t merit a detailed response. It was explained to him repeatedly after his initial rantings on the subject that nobody is proposing to ban all flirtation or sexual activity at conferences. That it’s all about consent, and if the woman wants to let TF munch on her leg, have at it.

And yet, months and months later, after multiple attempts by multiple people to explain this very simple concept to him, he’s still trumpeting the same nonsense. And idiots like you think that he’s come up with some clever “gotcha.”

TF’s “argument” is about on the same level as saying: “hey, you think rape should be illegal, but you have children, so therefore YOU HAD SEX WITH YOUR WIFE. Ha ha! You would be prosecuted by the very laws you’re demanding be enforced! Hoisted on your own petard! DERP DERP DERPITY DERP!”

Myers @207
One last comment before my wife hits me for being on here when i should be talking to her.

Could i suggest if you really wanted something to slam Thunderf00t for, rather than the trivial observation that extremists align with the closest position to their own you COULD instead have pointed out the unforgiveable way that he never ever denoubces those who side with him. As long as you post positive comments on his videos you could be the biggest hate filled psycho on the planet, you will not hear one word of denouncement on his part (whether that was over Islam or these issues or otherwise)

I think that one thing apologists for TF et al. are ignoring is the fact that the skeptical community is not the first to have to deal with the issue of male domination and the effect this has on the women in the movement.

The civil rights movement was confronted with the issue. The gay rights struggle is doubly confronted, since the patriarchy affects half (the lesbians) much more than the other half (gay men). The green movement, the peace movement…every progressive movement to date eventually runs into this issue. And the patriarchy, which opposes these progressive forces uses these divisions to undermine them, pointing out the hypocrisy in a movement that advocates progress but cannot accommodate half of humanity.

Maybe what we need to realize is that making our movement welcoming to all of humanity–especially the most downtrodden 50%–is the key to defeating the patriarchy.

3:34-4:08Thunderfoot again “Look I don’t know who’s bright idea it was to get these guys to speak at critical thinking type conferences. But what he’s saying here is s outrageously detached from reality.

cue clip of PZ

“that debate is going on on the internet right now, I guess misogyny is not the sole prerogative of christian and Islamic fundamentalists there are also some atheist’s who feel this way.”

back to thunderf00t
“Its not even a straw man it’s simply bullshit. It’s an outrageous fiction told to conjure up this boogeyman that there’s this great faction of the secular community that argues that women are fuck toys and eye candy for privileged white men.

Outrageously detached from reality, straw man, bullshit and outrageous fiction. Not really, maybe a tiny strawman. The debate is not itself shaped as colleagues vs fuck toys it’s shaped around the kind of standards we use to listen to (particularly) women’s claims of harassment and what often comes down to just dismissing their complaints by setting unreasonably high standards of evidence.

While I personally think the atheist community is better then (at least some) christian or Islamic communities on misogyny it does a disservice to the issue to pretend that we are above it or that it’s not an issue. see http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2012/12/30/mission-critical/ for an example of the kind of passive sexism in the community. It’s not throwing acid in women’s faces or letting women die of a miscarriage but that would be a really low bar to set for our community. It’s still a problem and when people bring it up we need to work to address it not dismiss it with a 10 minute youtube video full of clips of events with none of the context to the events.

4:09-4:15 Thunderf00t “Maybe there is the tiny fraction who think women are eye candy and fuck toys for privileged white men.

Cue a photo from the Rise of Atheism of 2 women one kissing each side of PZ’s face.

Cause a staged photo is I guess proof that PZ thinks all women are fuck toys? Oddly enough one can respect women as people and still take staged photographs.

4:16- 4:44 Thunderf00t “Well now thanks to scare tactics and boogeymen that these toxic parasites have conjured up, you now have conferences with harassment policies that look like this.”

Photo of the Skepticon 5 Harassment Policy http://www.skepticon.org/policy/ His photo to have been taken from a different iteration of the website but both have updated Oct 1, 2012 at the top so the policy should be the same.

Thunderfoot then reads off from the policy “Additionally, exhibitors in the expo hall, sponsor or vendor booths, or similar activities are also subject to the anti-harassment policy. Booth staff (including volunteers) should not use sexualized clothing/uniforms/costumes, or otherwise create a sexualized environment.”

For those unaware the purpose of this passage taken from a geek conference policy was primarily against booth babes etc.

Cue the clip from skepticon 3 (its not attributed in the video but that’s where it’s from).

“If you the hadn then I would have to submit and have sex with you. (/cut) If you win I’ll give me hotel number. (/cut) We’ll do the sex thing later. (/cut) Ok go back to your seat. No take the card’s with you I gotta call you back for the sex part later.”

Thunderfoot has written on that clip: If anyone else did this they would be crucified for their sexually inappropriate behavior by the PC police. and I gotta call you back for the sex part later.

I guess the I gotta call you back for the sex part later was a big sticking point for him. No mention of course that the sex part later was in fact a practical example using cards of how genes are mixed and rearranged during sex. These quotes are of course all provided without the context and you can go read about the whole thing and a much larger discussion of the topic on this post from a 3 weeks back. http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/12/13/oh-no-ive-been-exposed/

“Olivercrangle: How about if you provide evidence that we’re trying to institute a “PC police” and that we’re going to silence all conversation about sex, and are telling people that sexual behavior is prohibited?”

Thunderfoot has made these claims. He made these claims in the video that you refuse to watch, but feel free to disparage and dismiss.

You should take it up with Thunderfoot if you feel he has not provided evidence for his claims, or if you feel he has misrepresented you.

“So Darrel Ray is going to be banned from conferences? So is Greta Christina? Is the clip in that video a reference to my Skepticon talk in which I used recombination in a deck of cards as a metaphor for sex? Because if you actually watched any of that talk, you quickly discover that my public discussion of sex on a stage in front of a thousand people was actually about genetics, recombination, and the odd rules of sex that lead to strange shufflings of genes.

That is likely the video, but I think you are deflecting and I believe you know it. Your behavior, soliciting that women for sex, discussing your desire to have sex with her, in front of an audience had nothing to do with the content of your discussion or recombination, and could easily be seen as sexual harassment of a woman that had not consented to be spoken to like that, and had no idea that was coming, and was then pressured in front of a huge audience to treat your abuse with dignity and levity.

That’s what Thunderfoot asks you to address, as well as the claim that that makes you a hypocrite when you criticize the behaviors of others who act unilaterally and make sexual comments.

“Seriously, you idiots keep pushing this notion that all of the feminists are puritanical prudes who want to force you poor oppressed men to keep your penises in your pants at all times, when it’s nothing like that. Mutually agreed upon, consensual sex between two equals is a lovely and entirely acceptable thing. Poonhounds raging through bars and demanding that women serve their needs…not at all appropriate.

Professors raging on stage and demanding that women serve their needs…not at all appropriate

No, I’m not interested in PZ thinking for me. Like I said, I’m interested in his reaction and perspective on the content of the video. However, from what I understand now, it would just be a rehash of past conversations. Fair enough, let’s stop talking about it then.

Given that, I wonder what the point of this post is outside of demonizing TF, deservedly or not, by associating him with AVFM.

One thing that bugs me about this “you’ve just got to watch this video” business, is that if the message is so desperately important, why isn’t a transcript provided? Listening typically takes twice as long as reading, and people can’t be blamed for not wanting to waste that extra time.

Transcript? They’d never do that, Hyperdeath. Vloggers tend to be in love with the sound of their own voices (yes, this is true of both those we like and those we don’t). It’s all about hearing them. Listen to TFoot’s affected enunciation and cadence. His self-regard is a foot thick.

That is likely the video, but I think you are deflecting and I believe you know it. Your behavior, soliciting that women for sex, discussing your desire to have sex with her, in front of an audience had nothing to do with the content of your discussion or recombination, and could easily be seen as sexual harassment of a woman that had not consented to be spoken to like that, and had no idea that was coming, and was then pressured in front of a huge audience to treat your abuse with dignity and levity.

Because if a woman consents to one man (other than her husband, on her wedding night) she is consenting to all men. And if she consents to one thing with one man, she is consenting to all things with him.

Because women are either sexual and thus up for grabs, or they are owned and safely locked away, the property of one man.

A woman who is openly sexual cannot refuse anyone, ever, and cannot be raped: because she consented once.

Because sex is something that is done to women, not something that women do.

No, neither. I wouldn’t have known that AVFM featured TF’s video had PZ not mentioned it. If PZ isn’t going to watch the video and comment and its message, what is the point of this post beyond further piling on TF (again, deservedly or not)?

“Because if a woman consents to one man (other than her husband, on her wedding night) she is consenting to all men. And if she consents to one thing with one man, she is consenting to all things with him.

Because women are either sexual and thus up for grabs, or they are owned and safely locked away, the property of one man.

A woman who is openly sexual cannot refuse anyone, ever, and cannot be raped: because she consented once.

Because sex is something that is done to women, not something that women do.”

I don’t understand what you are saying. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the portion of the video demonstrating how PZ addressed the woman on stage.

If you can help clarify for me what you are saying I will try to address that.

No, neither. I wouldn’t have known that AVFM featured TF’s video had PZ not mentioned it. If PZ isn’t going to watch the video and comment and its message, what is the point of this post beyond further piling on TF (again, deservedly or not)?

So you feel justified in claiming that PZ is associating ThunderingFool with AVFM when he has not done so. That is insane troll logic.

Olivercrangle, you are objecting to women sexualizing themselves because it might lead men to think of them as sexual beings, and once they’ve been sexualized, then the men might think that they’d welcome advances, and then omg, we have sexual harassment.

When that is not how it works. A woman consenting to one sexualized context is consent for that context and that context alone. If it makes a different man think naughty thoughts? Well, fine. Let him think them. But if he acts on them, without her consent then he is in the wrong, and she is not.

Transcript? They’d never do that, Hyperdeath. Vloggers tend to be in love with the sound of their own voices (yes, this is true of both those we like and those we don’t). It’s all about hearing them. Listen to TFoot’s affected enunciation and cadence. His self-regard is a foot thick.

In my opinion, Thunderf00t’s a reasonably good orator. His tone is affected, but that’s an idiosyncrasy rather than a flaw. On the other hand, some of these “skeptic vloggers” are dreadful. Listening to them stutter out some rambling stream of consciousness is almost painful. (Wooly Bumblebee could half her playtime if she removed the “um”s.)

In fact, this may be why Thunderf00t is so popular. His fans mistake basic competence for erudition.

Olivercrangle, you are objecting to women sexualizing themselves because it might lead men to think of them as sexual beings, and once they’ve been sexualized, then the men might think that they’d welcome advances, and then omg, we have sexual harassment.

When that is not how it works. A woman consenting to one sexualized context is consent for that context and that context alone. If it makes a different man think naughty thoughts? Well, fine. Let him think them. But if he acts on them, without her consent then he is in the wrong, and she is not.

Also, learn to blockquote.

My responses here are via an older version of Dragon Naturally Speaking, because I have terrible arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. It is difficult for me to get this version of Dragon Naturally Speaking to do HTML correctly, and I cannot afford a newer version. I apologize.

Anyway, I do not believe I am objecting to women sexualizing themselves at all. The clip refers to PZ’s behavior, unilaterally, towards a woman he brought up on stage. She has not had time to express consent and she is placed in a venue where it would be difficult for any person to object to how the speaker is treating them.

Second, if this is anyone’s claim, it would be Thunderfoot’s claim, though I do not believe that is Thunderfoot’s claim at all.

I do not believe I am objecting to women sexualizing themselves at all. T

YOUR BELIEF OF YOUR MOTIVES IS IRRELEVANT. You need to convince us. Which requires you to shut the fuck up on your OPINION, and cite the literature. WHICH YOU CANNOT SEEM TO DO. Prima facie evidence of trolling.

Well Ibis, I assume you understand what is implied with the phrase “The company you keep”.
Where comments listed is the company you keep, proving that they represent the same frame of mind.
This personal dispute between TF and PZ is irrelevant when it comes to the rights of women. And calling everyone that disagree for moron or other things the imagination provides for ammunition, does NOT reflect any superior intellect or supports any argument, regardless of how rational and enlightened one may perceive one self to be.

This personal dispute between TF and PZ is irrelevant when it comes to the rights of women. And calling everyone that disagree for moron or other things the imagination provides for ammunition, does NOT reflect any superior intellect or supports any argument, regardless of how rational and enlightened one may perceive one self to be.

Cue a photo of Rebecca opening her top a bit and a guy posed to put money into her cleavage in what looks like a bar.

“Yeah that’s right the harassment policy is now venturing into telling people what they can and cannot wear at conferences. Sorry girls dresses, jewelry, makeup that’s creating a sexualized environment that promote gender stereotypes.”

First lets go back to the conference policy “Additionally, exhibitors in the expo hall, sponsor or vendor booths, or similar activities are also subject to the anti-harassment policy. Booth staff (including volunteers) should not use sexualized clothing/uniforms/costumes, or otherwise create a sexualized environment.”

There is a difference between not wearing a dress, jewelry and make up and wearing a highly sexualized costume. This is not about telling people particularly the attendees what to wear so much as it is about trying to set a non sexualized tone for the conference. If attendees want to be more sexualized that is different then the event itself promoting a highly sexualized environment. This point has been explained several times but it just doesn’t seem to sink in.

5:22Cue a Photo of a (slightly warped?) PZ giving I think a thumbs up/ (it’s obscured by text). With the wording Patriarchy at the top and “When you no longer believe in god but still want to have something invisible, all powerful and unverifiable to believe in.

Similarly to evolution it’s not that the patriarchy can’t be disproven it’s that there its lots of evidence that our culture discriminates (not necessarily consciously) against women. I’m sure the better read commentators could provide more discussion of this topic then I can.

5:24- 5:38 Thunderf00t: “Gender punishers and sister traitors diminishing and minimizing the experiences their fellow women have suffered at the hands of the patriarchy. I think are the words that those people who would want to protect you from this harassment that you’re not even aware of would use.”

Please go see my break down of part one for talk on diminishing and minimizing. I also can’t recall the last time I saw the phrases gender punishers and sister traitors used by a feminist towards other women. Probably not the words the women on FTB or Skepchick would use.

5:38- 6:04 TF again ” Seriously, who would pay money to go to a convention like this, the travel costs, the time away from your job, the hotel costs, the conference costs, simply to be judged by some highly strung and obseenly hypocritical professional victims. ”

Cue picture of PZ being kissed again with caption “no, it’s only misogyny when you do it!” and dissolving into the photo of rebecca and the money in her top.

“As to whether their clothes constitute creating a sexualized environment and there for fall under the harassment policy.”

Once again it wouldn’t fall under the policy. You have to know this you read us the relevant part of the policy shortly after 4:16 mark. Saying something would fall under a policy it obviously doesn’t fall under will not make it so. Abysmal reading comprehension or lying those seem to be the choices.

As has been pointed out the HP is to protect people against situations and actions they do not want like say if I just walked over and kissed PZ or stuck money down Rebecca’s top.It’s at the very least presumptuous to think that they would appreciate these actions. It is not the job of the policy to stop people from saying hey can we take a photo of me and my friend kissing you and everyone agreeing on it. Again I’ve seen this point hammered over and over again but to no avail.

Out of curiosity as I’m currently unemployed what are the wages and hours of a profesional victim and who do I send my resume to? Yes I know it was snarky but I did it anyway this video is grating on my patience.

PZ, can you tell us, had you and that woman discussed this prior to her coming to the stage?

Yes he has. Try a post from several days ago. But then, you are stupid I doubt you can find the previous posts, much less understand them. That is the only attitude you can expect when you are knowingly and deliberately stupid, as you have been since your first post.

He (PZ) is certainly implying an association to which readers will respond. To what end? To further marginalize him? Why not just a pointed takedown of the video content? Why not take the high road rather than implying “ah, look, he’s one of THEM now!”

At 4:50 he shows your behavior with an unidentified female and identifies your behavior with her as sexual harassment

Did she complain about it? If she had, I would bet the clothes off my back that PZ would have instantly backed off and apologized. See, the point isn’t that you can’t act in a sexual manner. It’s that you can’t act in a sexual manner, if the other person doesn’t like it.

For example, it’s not that Thunderf00t’s leg-gnawing in itself was a problem. The woman was clearly in on it, so that’s fine. The problem was that he claimed it as support for the idea that he shouldn’t have to get consent (incidentally, I’m still not sure if that’s one of those point where he thought people misunderstood him. Is there still an archive of his post somewhere?).

We’re not saying that we should kick out anyone who doesn’t have written consent forms in triplicate (as Thunderf00t also mentioned). Sexual behavior is not only fine, it’s great. I’m fully in favour of as much sexual behavior as humanly possible; but only if consensual.

He (PZ) is certainly implying an association to which readers will respond. To what end? To further marginalize him? Why not just a pointed takedown of the video content? Why not take the high road rather than implying “ah, look, he’s one of THEM now!”

This has been explained. Now you are just repeating yourself. Just because you do not like the answer does not mean that PZ or anyone else has to indulge you any further.

Well, I’ve watched Thunderfart’s video. What’s remarkable is the total lack of coherent content: it’s very clearly just a parade of quote-mining clips, strung together with whining about “PC”.

Oh, except at the very end, where Thunderfart expatiates on how You Tube is all that really matters, and how the “PC feminists” don’t have much of a presence there. OK, so, why the obsessive videos, Thunderfart?

Not sure if it’s been noted already, but Thunderf00t also posted about this twice yesterday on the slymepit as ‘tfoot’. I guess this shows us who he believes to be his constituency on this particular video.

The first paragraph mentions Tf00t as a hook, nothing more — I come right out and say that I’m not going to talk about the video. It’s only interest is that it drew the attention of what I really want to talk about.

The remaining 16 paragraphs are quotes and commentary on MRA idiocy.

Seriously, it’s stupid to tell me I have to watch Tf00t’s latest; I’m not talking about it. I don’t give a damn what he’s babbling about.

That is likely the video, but I think you are deflecting and I believe you know it. Your behavior, soliciting that women for sex, discussing your desire to have sex with her, in front of an audience had nothing to do with the content of your discussion or recombination, and could easily be seen as sexual harassment of a woman that had not consented to be spoken to like that, and had no idea that was coming, and was then pressured in front of a huge audience to treat your abuse with dignity and levity.

Stop projecting, Oliver, stop projecting.

PZ
A) What is your wonderful Trophy Wife™ saying to you propositioning that woman on stage?
B) What is the police saying about your threat to murder and eat that woman on stage?

Why not take the high road rather than implying “ah, look, he’s one of THEM now!”

Are you suggesting that Thunderfoot is NOT “one of them” now? Seems like he’s pretty down with the whole MRA anti-feminist project. Oh, he’ll give lip service to the idea of equality for women but in practice, he’s only for it as long as it doesn’t require any change or action on his part. And he’s not okay with other people taking action in support of women’s equality either, otherwise he wouldn’t be throwing a hissy fit about harassment policies. Nor would he find cause to flat-out lie about what constitutes sexual harassment and about what harassment policies actually mean. So, yeah. Actions speak louder than words.

“The person in the audience was a volunteer. If she’d shown any reluctance or embarrassment I would have let her step down, no problem.”

seems to indicate that PZ had not discussed the nature of his sexualized banter with her before hand to get her consent.

So what we see is a male speaker that the audience has given respect and authority to freely make sexual jokes and innuendo at the expense of a female volunteer.

This is problematic in the extreme.

1) It is rude and insensitive (and sexist) to your volunteer
2) It opens you up to charges of hypocrisy when you and others ridicule elevator guy and other people for much the same behavior
3) It sets a lousy example for people in your conference looking to you as a leader and role model
4) That PZ cannot acknowledge this indicates a problem with PZ and his ability to be objective.

Are you suggesting that Thunderfoot is NOT “one of them” now? Seems like he’s pretty down with the whole MRA anti-feminist project. Oh, he’ll give lip service to the idea of equality for women but in practice, he’s only for it as long as it doesn’t require any change or action on his part. And he’s not okay with other people taking action in support of women’s equality either, otherwise he wouldn’t be throwing a hissy fit about harassment policies. Nor would he find cause to flat-out lie about what constitutes sexual harassment and about what harassment policies actually mean. So, yeah. Actions speak louder than words.

Have you ever heard Darrel Ray speak at one of these events? Try it. We talk about sex a lot. And when the subject is genetics, it’s almost inevitable that sex is going to be a major point of discussion.

Your behavior, soliciting that women for sex, discussing your desire to have sex with her, in front of an audience had nothing to do with the content of your discussion or recombination, and could easily be seen as sexual harassment of a woman that had not consented to be spoken to like that, and had no idea that was coming, and was then pressured in front of a huge audience to treat your abuse with dignity and levity.

You know, I’ll actually give you a point there. It’s possible that, in front of an audience, with a big-name person like PZ, she might feel a little under the gun and might play along even though she wasn’t really happy with it.

THAT’S ALL THE MORE REASON TO HAVE CLEAR SEXUAL HARASSMENT GUIDELINES AND REPORTING PROCEDURES.

It’s a point in OUR favor, not the other way around. That’s exactly why we need reporting channels that will allow people to report harassment out of the spotlight and have it taken seriously. It’s all the more reason to have the very rules we’ve been advocating.
You’re arguing for our position and against Thunderf00t.

Not if they were, as it was in this case, in on what was happening. Why can’t you admit you are wrong? And your whole idiotology is wrong? Simply cause you can’t find evidence to support it, and must imagufacture evidence out of nothing. The sure sign of lack of intelligence, trolling, and fuckwittery.

It’s really nice that you agree that sexual harassment is wrong, Oliver. It’s just sad that you’re not informed or intelligent enough to distinguish sexual harassment to funny, informative banter during the course of a demonstration about sex and genetics.

Better luck next time! And thanks in advance for your support for the institution of anti-harassment policies at all atheist and skeptic conferences.

Well Ibis, I assume you understand what is implied with the phrase “The company you keep”.
Where comments listed is the company you keep, proving that they represent the same frame of mind.

Sounds like you’re making some conclusions yourself. I concluded “the company you keep” referred to the company AVFM’s commenters are keeping. If something you wrote or said was picked up by the KKK and praised for how true it is, the KKK is keeping company with you and should give you pause. Unless you really *are* a racist bigot and think the ideology of the KKK is just fine, of course.

This personal dispute between TF and PZ is irrelevant when it comes to the rights of women.

How so? To me (a woman, btw) it seems pretty relevant. It’s certainly not personal, in the sense of being private and significant only to the people involved.

And calling everyone that disagree for moron or other things the imagination provides for ammunition, does NOT reflect any superior intellect or supports any argument, regardless of how rational and enlightened one may perceive one self to be.

People aren’t called moron here for disagreeing. They are called names when they show a lack of comprehension and an unwillingness to educated themselves.

Maybe I’m looking at this “issue” from a different lens that is zoomed out of petty disputes. If we want humanity to be more civilized, we have to stop labeling and pointing at each other over little things. This reminds me of a presidential debate arguing over little intricacies (not even worth analyzing) over a larger problem that affects all of us as humans. With debates like these, I usually ignore them. The reason I’m leaving a comment now is that I want to express my frustration.
… I apologize to everyone on this blog if I upset you over my thoughts. have a safe new year.

Clearly you’ve read the Guide:

3. If something doesn’t affect you, it is not a problem that exists.
a. If someone claims there is a problem that you do not experience, they are blowing something out of proportion. This is evidenced by you not being affected by the problem. Let them know that it really isn’t a problem, and they should be focusing more on bigfoot and Yahweh, real problems that actually exist.

*check*

5. So you can be readily identifiable by other skeptics, ensure you use a variant or combination of one or more of the following words: skeptic, reason, thinker, free, logic, critical, truth, and dude. Innovative methods are encouraged, ie: r3A50nDUDE for “reasondude”.

*check* – and this one is particularly solid. I mean, reasondude/rationalhumano? That borders on suspicious.

8. The more you pretend you are a Vulcan, the more correct you are. If someone is using curse words, or your common sense tells you they are “emotional”, they are not thinking rationally and are wrong. Emotion equals wrong – this is just simple logic.

You therefore can, and should, ignore an argument if it contains anything resembling emotion. And you should point out that the non-skeptic needs to calm down and relax.

That’s actually not true at all, is it? I mean, it’s a distortion of this post and represents you trying to change the goal posts.

If you placed this on an SAT exam and asked what was the purpose of this essay

1) To show the misogyny of MRA commenters
2) To provide evidence that Thunderfoot’s video is probably filled with misogyny since so many MRAs seem to like it

What would the most correct answer be?

The title of the post is about Thunderfoot: “The company *you* keep”
The first paragraph is all about Thunderfoot and you explain that you can tell his video is his usual stuff because it was picked up at AVfM.

It’s a new year, and Thunderf00t hasn’t changed a bit — he has a new video where he’s apparently ranting about how feminism is poisoning atheism, which I haven’t watched, so I can’t judge. But there are hints that it’s more of the same. It’s been picked up and praised by A Voice For Men.

You then give several examples of what commenter at AVfM say about the video and feminism, but the reason you do this is not to show how dumb MRAs are, but to support your claim in your first paragraph that Thunderfoot hasn’t changed a bit.

And we know this, because you wind up your piece with a conclusion of how these examples lead us back to Thunderfoot and his video:

For some reason, none of this entices me to watch Thunderf00t’s video.

Of course, since you are reading AVfM, and good for you Professor Myers! It’s always important to read what the people you disagree with are saying. Anyway since you are over there picking on the commenters, I encourage you once more to take up John The Other on his challenge (link posted above) and debate him.

So what we see is a male speaker that the audience has given respect and authority to freely make sexual jokes and innuendo at the expense of a female volunteer.

This is problematic in the extreme.

1) It is rude and insensitive (and sexist) to your volunteer
2) It opens you up to charges of hypocrisy when you and others ridicule elevator guy and other people for much the same behavior
3) It sets a lousy example for people in your conference looking to you as a leader and role model
4) That PZ cannot acknowledge this indicates a problem with PZ and his ability to be objective.

6:02-6:04TF: But the poisoning doesn’t end there.
Unfortunately. I still have 4 minutes to go V.V Okay trying to put the snark away again.

6:05-6:14TF : “These spanners (? maybe spammers?) actually want to redifine what words mean. You know like atheism used to mean just not accepting there was a god or gods.”

Actually the earliest usage that I recall was of christians for not believing in the roman gods. One of the most popular definitions you see in dictionaries remains a denial of gods existence or knowledge that no gods exist.

6:15- TF: Hooo. Now it means this.

Cue up a video of PZ at a conference I can’t make out the symbol at the back over the glare. Again no citation.
Pz” And when we use Science answers problems it resolves questions for us. We should do more of that I think. So you know I propose this. “Atheism is the radical notion that we should live our lives by the principles of reason and evidence that is by science.”

I’m sure long time readers are shocked to see that PZ isn’t fond of the dictionary definition of atheism and wants atheists to strive to be more. See for example this piece for his full position http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/02/01/why-are-you-an-atheist/
Definitions change all the time and while it is nice to have a label for people who don’t believe in god(s) I don’t see a problem wanting atheists to be more then that definition (I in fact support such efforts).

6:36-6:47
The PZ’s slide changes to “feminism is the radical notion that women are people” while Tunderf00t talks over what ever PZ is saying.

TF: “A phrase in the same radical notion language that constitutes the false strawman dichotomy that lies at the heart of his feminist dogma.”

This is not a false strawman dichotomy. While you are free not to like the label the most basic definition of feminism is that women are deserving of being treated as men or more simply that women are people. There are dozens of different converging diverging groups/opinions in feminism but that is the basic premise. Just like to use Thunderf00ts own definitions there are Raelians, Scientologists, non theistic buddhists, dictionary atheists, humanists and atheist+ all under his definition of atheists. The fact that you have a particular set of views under that label does not mean that the label doesn’t apply to you. I’m actually surprised he practically refuted his own point.

I’m also not sure I’ve ever gotten a clear explanation of what constitutes feminist dogma. Maybe It’s like that atheist dogma I also hear so much about.

6:48-7:50Thunderfoot “Let muppets like this have their way and they wouldn’t merely stop with trying to control what you wear they would extend their right to prohibit you from saying things people might find offensive.”

Change to google+ again and Esteleth if you want to see your part it starts at 7:00.

Estheleth: “your right to do something ends the second that what it is you are doing hurts someone else. You know its the original phraseing is you can wave your arms around but that right stops when you hit some buddy in the nose.

Rebecca: ” your right to your fist ends where my face begins

Estheleth: “Yes somthing along those lines and that’s actually very true and applies to things like language I could say all manner of words you know I have the right to do that, I have the freedom of speech but my right to do that ends the second that someone who is affected by those words hears me.”

Cut to lisa Simpson
“I’m not sure brocman’s out of the woods yet there are a lot of religious watchdog groups out there keeping the world safe from the horror of free expression”

While it would depend on the case there are a lot of instances where your ability to say something has limits. Libel, threats, criminal harassment there are a number of areas where in fact we recognise a limit on your speech because it harms others. It’s frankly quite stupid to try to brush it all off as free expression as if all offensive speech is the same. There’s a big divide between I someone getting offended you don’t have the same opinion as them and someone getting bothered that you threatened to physically abuse them for instance. I’d have thought that someone so found of talking of false dichotomies would recognize that but obviously he hasn’t examined his own ideas.

Now I have supper to cook for the family I’ll try to finish the last 2 minutes tonight.

I’m sorry I have not read the whole thread yet but I just do not understand what “there are other more pressing problems” has to do with anything. I must be missing some important information. I do not see how paying attention to the problems racism and sexism take away from fighting poverty, disease or global warming. It is all people. Should we all ignore how people are treated by others while we fight and advocate for the betterment of people?

That is seems so irrational that it gives me a head ache.
I will not go and watch any fucking hate filled rant by anyone.
now I will go back up-thread to finish reading
uncle frogy

I apologize to you, because I know you would like a response, and I know you believe that 192 links to some important, relevant, and salient issue.

I accept that, and I accept I am doing you a disservice by not looking at that.

I think there is plenty in this post of PZs and Thunderfoot’s video to talk about, and I think that stands on its own. If you believe it’s important to know something else about Thunderfoot that we don’t know or remember, I accept that, but I don’t have the time to wade into “The Lousy Canuck’s” very long post and the links it goes to or the discussion.

I am not ignoring this as PZ ignores Thunderfoot and John The Other, because I have not picked out you, or The Lousy Canuck or Amy Roth for disparagement and then studiously avoided you folks.

I think that’s the issue here, how PZ has a pattern of singling out folks for his derision, swinging the eye of Sauron on to them, and then studiously avoiding their arguments as somehow beneath him. Here he is doing that to Thunderfoot.

Ask PZ himself, this is not a particularly scientific or skeptical approach to debate, or finding the truth, or having an argument.

Your opinion regarding me as a person are of little interest, and though you perhaps take pride in your lack of elementary communication skills, such attitude impress rarely other than the person expressing it.
Perhaps Mr. Myers understands by this example that “the company you keep” provide insight of little value, as I would be surprised if rejection of view or opinion based on “fuckwittery” reflects intellectual capacity he would like to be associated with.

“fuckwittery”

A somewhat different curiosity is how embraced the word fuck is. This verb with origin in my language, the proto-Norse/Germanic verb describing the action of the the phallos as the dominant force that cause action ( hence a verb). Correctly used to assert position of dominance towards whom the word is directed at, if one is able to ignore the irony of using it it the same sentence as misogynists. Not important I reckon, because how else could the random anonymous forum commenter show how really really cool the person wielding the keyboard is.

Either you haven’t actually watched the video, you’re really stupid, or – much the most likely in view of your previous comments on this blog – you’re being dishonest. First, someone who volunteers at a talk like this, in which humour at the audience’s expense has already been used by the speaker, is unlikely to be offended by a bit of banter. At about 13:00 PZ jokes that they could play for higher stakes: “If I win this hand, I get to kill and eat you.” The volunteer shrugs and smiles – she’s clearly OK with this level of banter. PZ then says, “Another possibility is if you win the hand, then I would have to submit and have sex with you.” The volunteer reaches for PZ’s cards – a clearer indication that this type of banter is OK is hard to imagine. Only after this does PZ joke about his hotel room. Of course, Thunderfart had to cut out all this context in order to make the latter look as if it could be harassment, just as you ignore it all for the same reason.

Unlike, say, “Republicans” or even creationists, the beauty of the so-horrid-they-could-only-be-human MRA is that after only briefly dipping into their poisonous, scum-filled pond I never have to expend energy thinking about them again: they are nobodys going on about nothing worth considering a second time and going nowhere.
They aren’t even threatening enough to be hated, just despised and dismissed. Certainly, unlike deluded, poison-spitting “Republicans,” they never ever appear in physical human form. Indeed, they are only found online – if you’re looking for them – and can be used to generate outrage or ignored entirely (unlike the Teabaggers, who may appear of TV, thanks to being funded by rich, evil people modelling themselves, apparently, after Sauron the Great).

They, like the Phelps mob (and is there a worse insult to hurl than that?), are finally attention-seekers and nothing else.

If they appear, laugh, spit and move on. They don’t exist unless you acknowledge them.

If something you wrote or said was picked up by the KKK and praised for how true it is, the KKK is keeping company with you and should give you pause. Unless you really *are* a racist bigot and think the ideology of the KKK is just fine, of course.

Well.. I know little about this segregated society that not so long ago was enforced by law I assume you come from. But still I would find it strange that people in the US would associate their grandparents with racial bigots for respecting the laws affirming the racially segregated society they lived in. What about the constitution as common ground for people as a whole? Is it simply as easy as to disregard content and context blindly as long as one obey the the one true path own doctrine advocates.

People aren’t called moron here for disagreeing. They are called names when they show a lack of comprehension and an unwillingness to educated themselves.

The idea of dissidents and minds refusing to conform according to the one true ideology, as someone simply needing to be reeducated is neither a new nor very original concept. That you without shame utters thoughts belonging to humanities most repulsive ideologies, as if you represented something other than the view of other humans as below your divine and superior presence. I hope your comment was meant to come out differently than the fanatical insane garbage you presented. If not, I guess what “eine untermensch als mich” think is only deficiencies in need of reeducation. Lol…. the comical tragedy is that you probably do not see that you promote the ideology usually used as definition of a cult. Lol… I should give you the e-mail address to my grandfather, and tell him about the needs for dissenting views to be a matter of reeducation, he has experienced such ideological crazy ideas up close, and would surely be interested in being told why such ideas is necessary once more…. Bah… Cult I say.

7:50 -8:00Thunderf00t : ” For my part I watched with dispair as these ultaPC professional victims have slowly dripped poison into what used to be a vibrant and exciting conference scene such that I really want nothing to do with them.

Photo of a comment by Matt Dillahunty (face book I assume?)
Which reads: “Soon, I’ll be posting something non-drama..but to make things easier, I have a yes/no question. If you answer is YES, please post a response. If your answer is NO, do not post a reply:

Do you think that elevatorgate was just an overreaction to a request for coffee?

Again, only post if your answer is “yes”. Anything other than yes…steer clear. Mass blocking…incoming.”

I guess having a blog, and a call in show isn’t enough free speech now people need to be able to post their views to your personal facebook page?

8:00-8:18Thunderfoot: Hell I’ve been pining back to the happy days when I actually knew who none of these people were. Look let me make this simple I just got back from an experiment where I was surrounded EVERYWHERE by sane, capable, rational, able, capable and inteligent people.

Well I’ve been pining back for the days when I respected you or never knew you existed either. I’m going to be charitable and assume you didn’t mean to disparage people with mental illness or physical disabilities with sane and able. Although I find capable amusing given you were incapable to understand the meaning of 2 god damn sentences from a harassment policy.

8:18-thunderfoot: “And then you come back to the secular community where you have people like Melody Hensley. That’s the executive director of the center for inquiry DC going creationist style ban happy on people who havn’t even mentioned her name yet.”

Photos of what are probably tweets from 28Nov 12

I blocked everyone but 2 ppl that follow the Elevatorgate account & I lost 20 followeres. Why would you follow me & someone that harasses me?

@tweek75 Or they may want to keep tabs on me and I’m not taking that chance.

@emilyhasbrooks @bethpresswood Don’t want to take a chance. Better to lose some followers than risk having creepy people follwing me.

Also one from Ian Cromwell
@MelodyHensley – I’m not sure what deleting people accomplishes in that case. They can still see your tweets, even if blocked.

Because I guess we are all obliged to let people follow us on our personal twitter accounts? Frankly so what. Ian even points out they can still read her tweets. If I don’t want people following me, especially if they’re hanging around someone that’s harassing me, there’s no reason I have to let them. Just like there’s no reason why I have to try to be even handed and curb my language in this post that’s just how I write most of my posts. Your twitter account you make the rules. Someone else’s twitter account they make the rules that’s how it works.

8:40
And starting flagging compains against videos critical of her.

Picture of Probably her face book page it reads:
Melody Hensley
Hi friends! I would appreciate if *everyone* of you would flag this video as “bullying”. You have to sign into youtube. If you don’t have a youtube account, they are super easy to create. this means a lot tome. I’m tired of the constant online harassment and bullying. This is too much.

I’m not spending my night going through another video but we get such thorough critcisms as ” every rational person knows feminism doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny” “Shes a fan of rebecca watson so she’s as much a skeptic as a flat earther.” Calls her feminism misandry. Starts describing her tactics by begining by putting on pink military panties and matching combat boots. Calling her a twat. Calling her a proffesional victim. In a tissy.

Basically a whole bunch of harassment and personal attacks instead of actually trying to adress her concerns or positions. Once again we see that to the rational champions of free speech bullying, minimizing and harassing someone is criticism. Colour me unimpressed.

8:40-9:00 Thunderf00t: “Oh and would you believe it she labels herself as a feminist too. It’s just sickening to see someone from the center from inquiry embrace with such relish these silencing tactics which we’ve seen creationists use here on youtube for years. To protect their bullshit arguements from criticism.”

Oddly enough a creationist can do something and it doesn’t make it bad. For example there’s probably a creationist right now eating take out chinese. Again there’s a difference between to protect their arguments from criticism and to take actions against someone who’s verbally harassing them. A video on Ken Ham’s creationism is different then a video on Ken Ham’s hair cut.

It also requires you to make a point instead of just claiming that every as everyone knows you’re right. I wish it wasn’t so I mean it would make this easier. Everyone knows I’m right and this video is a waste of time case closed. But no we still have 1 more minute to get through.

9:00-9:09 Thunderf00t: “I mean really an executive director from the center of iquiry running a flagging campaign. I mean shit these people would give scientology a run for their money.”

So apparently trying to take action against a video that is over 50% attacks on you and not your views is on the same ball park to running a multinational church the hires out private investigators, litigators to harass people at their places of work and their familly. I just don’t buy it.

9:09-9:18 Thunderfoot: “Thankfully these PC bullies really can’t get much purchase on the open forum of free speech. That is on youtube these thin skinned whiners are an utter non event.

I agree youtube does nothing to censor the vapid bullying and harassment of its users who cling to the banner of free speech.

9:18-9:43Clip of PZ unsourced possibly from eschaton
“you know I don’t have a major presence on youtube”.

Thunderf00t: “They’re like creationists their views can’t compete on an open and fair playing field and they know it. Stating things like:

clip of PZ
“the comments on youtube are a cesspit they really are.”

Thunderf00t “Indeed after resoritng to these creationist tactics of disableing ratings and comments.”

Oddly enough youtube is not the sum total be all end all of freespeech. I watch video reviews of science fiction shows and they are on blip not youtube. Is that because they can’t compete in the open source of ideas? No it’s cause Viacom was putting up too much of a stink of using their footage and it was easier to move elsewhere. Youtube is not a level playing field nor is it the be all and end all of free speech no matter how many times you say so.

I’ll point out that pz’s poll bombings are infamous so I’m not surprised he doesn’t think well of the scores on youtube. Although comments are disabled they are provided a link to pharyngula where it can be discussed there is also an unmoderated post on the blog at all times the Thunderdome if you really want to enjoy your free speech without any interfering.

9:43-9:50 Thunderf00t: “Get a grip. You do not have to appease the request of every PC whiner.”

Again I’ll direct you to part 1 for why people were hurt by the t-shirt.

9:50-10:04Thunderf00t: “The secular commuity can achieve great things but it will never achieve anything while it has poison like this dripped into it’s heart.”

Photo of women protesting captioned “RADICAL FEMINISM It’s no longer about the legitimacy of women’s original complaints, but the inherent injustice of their proposed solutions.”

Please forward this video to leaders of secular groups who you think need to hear this message. and a request to mirror because of feminists habbit of false flagging campaigns.

Well we just have to disagree with what’s poisoning the secular community. I’m also confused by the caption as to whether your implying radical feminists are upset by the solutions they proposed or if you’re upset by the solutions they proposed or what your exact problem with radical feminism is.

I’m not sure who I would send a badly argued, cherry picked, video that frequently missed the points of those it argues against but also lumps harassment and criticism into the same boat. Why would I send any one a video where you spend a chunk of it arguing over your misreading of 2 sentences. Why would they think this is convincing or even a laudable example of reasoned argument. I just spent far too much time on it but I hope everyone found it useful. I’m MichaelD I just wasted half my day ripping into this stupidity so you don’t have to!

The idea of dissidents and minds refusing to conform according to the one true ideology…

Take your “one true ideology” and shove it deep and hard. There are plenty of disagreements around here, so don’t try to sell that strawman.
I hope your comment was meant to come out differently than the complete bullshit you actually spouted, but in my experience, people who talk shit the way you do don’t do so by mistake. They say what they say because they’re too chickenshit to say what they actually mean, so they feel the need to express themselves in a disgustingly passive-aggressive manner.

michaeld, I read your breakdown to see if there was additional context to the video I should be aware of. My biggest interest was the quotation:

>>Estheleth: “Yes somthing along those lines and that’s actually very true and applies to things like language I could say all manner of words you know I have the right to do that, I have the freedom of speech but my right to do that ends the second that someone who is affected by those words hears me.”<>While it would depend on the case there are a lot of instances where your ability to say something has limits. Libel, threats, criminal harassment there are a number of areas where in fact we recognise a limit on your speech because it harms others. It’s frankly quite stupid to try to brush it all off as free expression as if all offensive speech is the same. There’s a big divide between I someone getting offended you don’t have the same opinion as them and someone getting bothered that you threatened to physically abuse them for instance.<<

You're right, of course, that freedom of speech has reasonable limits, such as threats and fighting words. However, that awful off-the-cuff line from Estheleth said none of those things.

I'm willing to believe she continued talking and made her point into something else. I'm willing to believe it was something she later retracted and doesn't stand by. I'm willing to believe it was something other members of the Google chat disagreed with.

I'm not willing to accept your charitable spin on what was plainly a claim that people have a right to not be offended. This looks like you head a knee-jerk reaction and felted compelled to defend an undefendable position merely because Thunderf00t criticized it. Please reconsider this single point.

I’m not familiar with the incident involving PZ that’s been discussed in this thread, but I infer it went something like this: he was giving a talk on genetics, he asked for a volunteer to help him illustrate one of his points, gave a demonstration that involved shuffling cards together, and then made a joke about how he and his volunteer were having sex. Is that right?

See, I think this actually raises an interesting point. I’m not going to say this was OK. I’m also not going to say it was wrong. I’m not going to say either of these things because I wasn’t the person involved, and sexual harassment is defined by consent. If you’re bantering with someone and they don’t mind it, then by definition, no harassment has occurred.

I grant that there are reasons why some people could have been made uncomfortable by that. But it’s not for anyone, other than PZ’s volunteer herself, to say whether any harassment took place. I don’t know whether this happened at a conference that had a good harassment policy, but if it did and she didn’t report it, that would be evidence that she wasn’t upset. Even beyond that, I’m sure that even at this late date, that if she came forward and said that she was upset or uncomfortable at the time, PZ would do the decent thing and apologize.

I’m willing to believe she continued talking and made her point into something else. I’m willing to believe it was something she later retracted and doesn’t stand by. I’m willing to believe it was something other members of the Google chat disagreed with.

Are you willing to believe that TF omits a lot of details. Are you willing to believe that the bit about censoring jewelry was not about censoring jewelry?

People aren’t called moron here for disagreeing. They are called names when they show a lack of comprehension and an unwillingness to educated themselves.

The idea of dissidents and minds refusing to conform according to the one true ideology, as someone simply needing to be reeducated is neither a new nor very original concept. That you without shame utters thoughts belonging to humanities most repulsive ideologies, as if you represented something other than the view of other humans as below your divine and superior presence. I hope your comment was meant to come out differently than the fanatical insane garbage you presented. If not, I guess what “eine untermensch als mich” think is only deficiencies in need of reeducation. Lol…. the comical tragedy is that you probably do not see that you promote the ideology usually used as definition of a cult. Lol… I should give you the e-mail address to my grandfather, and tell him about the needs for dissenting views to be a matter of reeducation, he has experienced such ideological crazy ideas up close, and would surely be interested in being told why such ideas is necessary once more…. Bah… Cult I say.

You realise you’re chortling and giggling about a phantasm of your imagination, no?

But still I would find it strange that people in the US would associate their grandparents with racial bigots for respecting the laws affirming the racially segregated society they lived in.

I am truly stunned. Did you really just say that “I was only following orders” is a perfectly fine stance to take? Because there have always been people who understood that racism was wrong. Know who people who agitated for civil rights in the 50s and 60s are now? Grandparents. Yes, someone who “respected” racist laws was being racist. Doesn’t matter much if it was unthinking racism or not, they were still being racist.

yhcmichael, you know that Esteleth is right here. You could just ask her what she meant.

I am perfectly fine with being offended (as odd as that is to say) but I am most definitely allowed to be offensive in return (something these MRAs use to then label women as shrill and hysterical). I am also entirely allowed to say “I don’t want to talk to you, go away” and have that heeded. These ‘freeze peach’ individuals argue that THAT is censorship. That me not wanting to listen to them is denying them their right to talk. They feel they have a right to talk to *me*, but I don’t have a right to not listen. They feel they have a right to *my* time and *my* person and they get offended and pissed off if my breast-and-vagina-having self does not want to entertain them and their penises.

So you didn’t see the video, you have no idea what happened, but you’re going to tell us what happened and what you think it means.

Nicely done.

I will point out that this

“she didn’t report it, that would be evidence that she wasn’t upset”

No harm, no foul.

You do understand all sorts of arguments that describe how sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, and even bullying not being reported right?

Are you aware that college women have a 1 in 4 chance of being raped? That’s the results of a survey from Mary Koss when she asked college women about various incidents and behaviors. Analyzing the survey, Dr. Koss decided that 25% of them had been raped.

The problem is that 73% of these women said they had not been raped, and 42% of those women later went on to have sex once more with their alleged rapists.

So no harm no foul, right?

They said they weren’t raped, they had sex again with their alleged rapists, I guess Adam, that we can only conclude they weren’t raped and that the 1 in 4 number is total bullshit.

This is what happens Adam when you try to rationalize something that isn’t rational.

In logic, F implies X is T for all X.

Try not to defend the indefensible. Also, make your critiques on the videos you watch, not the videos you imagine.

How many women make up excuses for abusive boyfriends/husbands. “Oh, it’s not abuse….” Now extrapolate out.

How many women are ridiculed if they claim to have been raped?
How many women get told “oh, you weren’t actually raped”?
How many women internalise the “don’t do X or you’ll be asking to get raped” to a degree that they don’t admit to having been raped?
How many women were raped while passed out and have no idea it happened?

So, Oliver, what does it mean, if we are wrong and you are right, and PZ sexually harassed the volunteer in the video?

Let’s assume you are right. So? PZ is still correct to support sexual harassment policies and TF is still a sexist ass whose fanbase has lots of rabid misogynists in it now. The only thing that changes is that PZ owes the young woman an apology.

“So, Oliver, what does it mean, if we are wrong and you are right, and PZ sexually harassed the volunteer in the video?

Let’s assume you are right. So? PZ is still correct to support sexual harassment policies and TF is still a sexist ass whose fanbase has lots of rabid misogynists in it now. The only thing that changes is that PZ owes the young woman an apology.”

and then made a joke about how he and his volunteer were having sex. Is that right?

No, not really. That would have been harrasment.

I don’t know whether this happened at a conference that had a good harassment policy, but if it did and she didn’t report it, that would be evidence that she wasn’t upset

No, not really. That’s evidence she did not report. There are myriads of other factors that would have prevented her from making a report. The power gradient, the fact that it happened in front of everybody, the fact that she had volunteered, what happened the last time she tried to draw attention to harrasment etc etc etc.

Of course, this episode was hardly hidden. If there actually had been ant harrasment hopefully the organisers would have intervened. Which is moot, if you watch the whole session, it’s pretty clear she was not inconvenienced more than a regular volunteer (which is why I never volunteer for things like this). In no way harassed.

Is there a point to all this?
Partly: What I’m trying to get at, if there’s a situation that you feel might be harrasment- intervene! Your intervention might be as simple as asking her afterwards “that looked ucofortable, are you ok” – but do something. Don’t isolate the victim by letting the harrasment be a matter between the harasser and the harassed – which is partly what I feel you are doing here.

See, olivercrangle, you’re trying to tell women how they should feel about their own experiences. That’s called “mansplaining”. It’s obnoxious and sexist. Stop it. No one gave you the right to speak on behalf of this person.

I agree, rape is underreported, and many women who’ve been sexually assaulted don’t feel as if they’ve been the victim of a crime, because we live in a culture that downplays the importance of consent. None of that changes or affects the basic facts at hand, which are these: If you banter with a woman in a sexual way and she doesn’t mind it, no harassment has occurred. If you don’t know whether or not she minded, you have no right to claim harassment on her behalf.

I’m absolutely in favor of changing the culture in whatever ways we can to make rape, harassment and bullying easier to report, and to shield people who do report it. (Are you?) That’s why I support strong harassment policies and taking people seriously when they report harassment, even if prominent members of the movement are involved. (Do you?) What I’m not in favor of is telling women that I know when they’ve been harassed, regardless of their own thoughts on the matter.

Gnumann+,who should not under any cirumstance be referred to as "gunman"says

What did happen, then? I’m not familiar with this story, and I’m not going to watch Thunderfoot’s video because I don’t trust him not to have deceptively edited it.

Don’t isolate the victim by letting the harrasment be a matter between the harasser and the harassed – which is partly what I feel you are doing here.

I don’t know what gives you that idea. As I said, if this person came forward publicly and said she felt harassed, I would support her and she would be in the right to ask PZ for an apology. I don’t know what else could be done about it at this late date.

Because expecting people to voluntarily look up stuff on the Internet and examine their own biases is *totally* similar to advocating torture and brainwashing under tyrannical governments. You are obviously not to be taken seriously. As Matt would say, Yer done. Wasting no more time on you.

A while ago I came to the conclusion after speaking with partner/spouse that no we really don’t want to have anything to do with either atheist or skeptic movements or groups. The decision was due to a lot of things but this bullshit really was interpreted as us as a sign that our kind of people were not welcome. But you know it wasn’t so much TFoot or Amazing Asstheist that made me filled with disgust and loathing for the sub-culture. I’m sorry to say it was people like lilandra. I don’t dislike lilandra, she’s nice. Which is the problem, there are assholes and the rank and vile don’t think it’s important enough to rock the boat to address them. It is the people hand wringing over drama that sickens me the most. Get the fuck over yourselves.

Gnumann+,who should not under any cirumstance be referred to as "gunman"says

What did happen, then? I’m not familiar with this story, and I’m not going to watch Thunderfoot’s video because I don’t trust him not to have deceptively edited it.

Wise move. No-one’s linked to the full video yet in this tread (It’s late and I’m not going to search on the iPad)? Well. From coarse memory: the setting is a biology lesson via a card game. PZ says: “If I win, I’m going to kill you. And if you win I have to submit and we have sex”(probably not verbatim)

I don’t know what gives you that idea. As I said, if this person came forward publicly and said she felt harassed, I would support her and she would be in the right to ask PZ for an apology

Sorry, I did not make my self clear. I was more talking about the general case than this episode specifically. As in, placing the onus of reporting on the victim is not always a good idea.

If so, I’d first of all expect them to make clear what exactly it is they disagree with. Can you do that?

I’ll restate my previous opinion: While I don’t think PZ’s behavior in this instance was actually a problem, it could potentially be so. The proper response is to do what we’ve been advocating all along; provide clear guidelines and easily available channels that will allow anyone who has a problem to report it and be taken seriously.

That was sarcasm, right? Please tell me that was sarcasm, because I honestly do not want to think that you are telling me that I should be polite sugar sweet sunshine to people who tell me that I do not matter except as a thing to stick penises in.

Gnumann+,who should not under any cirumstance be referred to as "gunman"says

Sorry, I did not make my self clear. I was more talking about the general case than this episode specifically. As in, placing the onus of reporting on the victim is not always a good idea.

It sucks that people often don’t come forward, but I don’t see what the alternative is. We can’t file harassment incident reports without the involvement and consent of the person who was targeted. At some point, they have to agree to come forward and report their experience.

Gnumann+,who should not under any cirumstance be referred to as "gunman"says

At some point, they have to agree to come forward and report their experience.

Yes, but we can decide how easy we want to make it. In a lot of cases, it’s difficult to figure out who to report these things to and to be taken seriously when you do. The Grothe “there are no reports of sexual harassment” incident made it clear that even when you report a case to the head honcho of the organization, it might still be forgotten.

The problem is that 73% of these women said they had not been raped, and 42% of those women later went on to have sex once more with their alleged rapists.

Fuck you. I didn’t even realize that what happened to me, when I was a nine and ten year old boy, was rape until about a year and a half ago. So I don’t count? Others, women and girls, men and boys, who are in denial weren’t really raped? Don’t you dare tell me, or any other victim of sexual assault how we should or should not feel.

It sucks that people often don’t come forward, but I don’t see what the alternative is. We can’t file harassment incident reports without the involvement and consent of the person who was targeted. At some point, they have to agree to come forward and report their experience.

There are all kinds of interventions. Talking to people is the one I favour personally as a first step. Of course at the end the person must both agree to the foul and (before more formal efforts are made) agree they want to take it further.

I suspect we are largely in agreement, your initial comment just rubbed my paranoia the wrong way.

In that context, it seems a little childish, but maybe no more so that PZ Myers sexually harassing some woman in front of an entire conference, or Rebecca Watson showing some dude from JREF her tits with a bottle of alcohol in the background, or Rebecca Watson today, tweeting some jackass was a virgin.

And here’s another of his greatest hits:

Because I don’t know if Stephanie Zvan is a fucking bitch or not, but even if Stephanie Zvan is not a fucking bitch, calling Stephanie Zvan a fucking bitch, even loudly and repeatedly is not at all evidence of misogyny…

Take that into account when you’re trying to judge the depth of his feeling for victims of sexual harassment and assault.

1) I have a life as well, and limited time to write here — what you call “running away” other people may refer to as “going to bed, going to work, making dinner, picking up kids”
2) Until you offer to pay my bills, I have no obligation to reply to everyone
3) Especially when many of the replies are merely mega dittoes and people refusing to do anything other than bully or try to play gotcha.
4) Correspondents that show respect get respectful replies, time permitting
5) As in this thread there are many people that cannot follow a serial argument or acknowledge in any way that they may be wrong — it is pointless to converse with them
6) And then there are people like Nerd of Redhead who is only a name calling troll. But there are a lot of them.

7) Elsewhere around the net, people remark how vicious and nasty you are and talk about all the logical fallacies, and all of the bullying. PZ instead says he wouldn’t have you any other way.

Invoking the mansplanation derailiing tactic gets an ignore for that comment.

Does this mean that if we mention “mansplaining” in our comments O.C. will ignore us? Does it work like a shield? Or perhaps a spell since he calls it an invocation. I don’t really believe in those but I’m willing to try. It’s three times, yes?

It’s difficult in this format to post, then to scroll the blog back up and see what has been posted in the meantime.

“If so, I’d first of all expect them to make clear what exactly it is they disagree with. Can you do that?

I’ll restate my previous opinion: While I don’t think PZ’s behavior in this instance was actually a problem, it could potentially be so. The proper response is to do what we’ve been advocating all along; provide clear guidelines and easily available channels that will allow anyone who has a problem to report it and be taken seriously.”

My argument in this thread is that PZ needs to watch Thunderfoot’s video himself. And that it is bogus for PZ to excoriate, dismiss, and disparage Thunderfoot for this video without ever having watched the video.

At some point PZ asked what portion of the video he should address, so I gave a spot, and explained why I think Thunderfoot had a problem with it.

I don’t go to many conferences, or run them, or deal with security, it’s not clear to me what should be done. But I have seen arguments for explicit policies and arguments saying to leave it up to the venue and local law. I tend to prefer the latter arguments because otherwise I think everyone is opening a legal can of worms and forcing a lot of non experts to take on the roles that even experts frequently get wrong.

The other issue is that examining PZ and Watson’s hypocritical behaviors here should give us all pause. Pause to reflect on power, corruption, mistakes, “good intentions” leading to bad outcomes. After watching PZ on that video and reading his rationalizations he should be nowhere close to anyone responsible for dealing with sexual harassment. And the same is true of Rebecca Watson, whose behavior on the video, whose behavior in the elevator is best exemplified by the SNL video, Sexual Harassment and You. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBVuAGFcGKY

So ask Thunderfoot what should be done. He made the video. He claims to be knowledgable. He’s the guy PZ refuses to deal with directly.

Funny how olivercrangle’s respectful reply to me was also very condescending towards me. I fucking hate how some people who are defending the idea that it is alright to harass women demands respect for both themselves and their privilege.

My argument in this thread is that PZ needs to watch Thunderfoot’s video himself. And that it is bogus for PZ to excoriate, dismiss, and disparage Thunderfoot for this video without ever having watched the video.

This post IS NOT ABOUT THUNDERFOOTINMOUTH OR HIS STUPID VIDEO. IT’S ABOUT THE MRA IDIOTS WHO WERE APPROVING OF IT.

Strawmanning, quote mining, apparent allergy to the word “context”. There was one clip of you talking to a woman on stage about how you had to have sex with her. Nothing from what lead up to that moment, or what came after to explain your behavior. For a moment it sounded like he’d have a possibly rational point about the backlash against the fake Surlyramics and the Skepchick protest shirts, maybe some sort of free speech for parody argument, but no, I was giving him too much credit. He just blasted people who didn’t like them.

About the only thing I found myself kind of agreeing with him was people broadening the term atheism to include things other than lack of belief in God. He favors a very strict interpretation of the word, at least according to this video. I do think he has a good point here. Broadening definitions might be useful sometimes, but for this particular word- if you broaden it, what do uncovered nonbelievers get to use now? Though while it’s the part that I agree with most(as in, at all), it sort of makes him look even worse. It shows that he can look at a situation and make a rational point. He has that capability. So what the hell was he doing in the rest of the video?

So I suppose it was like a ten pound pile of shit with a somewhat pretty chunk of quartz on top.

The commenters on YouTube lived down to their reputation, apparently, believing that society grants men certain privileges over women means you hate men. Just believing that privilege merely exists, without getting into specific details or a proposed response to it, according to some of his commenters is an automatic sign of misandry.

Elsewhere around the net, people remark how vicious and nasty you are and talk about all the logical fallacies, and all of the bullying.

Can you give an example of all of these logical fallacies?

Other than people not understanding how to apply ad hominem and claiming the “viciousness and nastiness” here is an example of such, I’m drawing a blank at what logical fallacies the Horde is accused of.

Oliver, I was taking about the one on innumeracy where you were shown to be innumerate and then never replied to that. No, you don’t have to reply to everything, but when you just exhibited an inability to deal with numbers and amounts and didn’t address that, you’ll have to understand that people might not take you seriously when you start trying to spout off numbers on another topic.

Don’t come back Olivercrangle. I’ve had to skim over your posts because they’re a word salad of smug ugliness. Also that bit where you attack Adam for using a derailing propoganda? You owe me another Irony-meter for that post.

Other than people not understanding how to apply ad hominem and claiming the “viciousness and nastiness” here is an example of such, I’m drawing a blank at what logical fallacies the Horde is accused of.

Without evidence or justification, those people reject “feminism” as a logical fallacy. They’ve never bothered to attempt to explain why in any detail, or to present the evidence that it is so. Just lots of bile-spewing, derision, calling women liars, calling men who agree with them wimps, and plenty of the exact sort of sexism that makes feminism necessary in the first place.

Oh, FFS. You might as well condemn fish for being purple dreams for all the sense that makes.

Well… yeah. Rational thinking isn’t their strong suit when the results aren’t to their liking. As near as I can figure, the definition of “misogyny” is “bad things that theists(preferably black/brown ones and especially Muslims) do to women” and therefore cannot apply to them at all ever. You can tell because they condemn the negative behavior towards women that occur outside of the West, and pretty much never apply hyper-skepticism to women who get rape and death threats from Christians in the West. The moment that they themselves might be held to some standard of behavior remotely similar to the one they hold others to? That’s irrational and illogical, and based on women being either liars or delusional.

Oh… and I don’t think I’ve seen this specifically mentioned yet so I’m going to do it now:

When anti-feminists question or outright reject the claims of women that sexism is a problem, that they get harassed and even assaulted by fellow skeptics/atheists, the anti-feminists are saying that those women are either lying or delusional. When feminists are rude to anti-feminists, it is in response to that sort of attack on their character/sanity. Anti-feminists aren’t “just disagreeing”, they are dismissing and insulting the people they are disagreeing with.

So anyone who pulls that “I was just disagreeing” line can go fuck themselves.

It’s just that “feminism” can’t be used as a logical fallacy, because you don’t perform feminism on an argument. I can commit the fallacy of equivocation by saying “things which are gross are undesirable. I have a gross of oranges. Therefore, I do not want them.” There is no way to commit the “fallacy of feminism”, because that’s not what feminism is.

I understand what they’re trying to do. It’s just inaccurate use of the language of logic.

I’m just amused at the casual use of the word “radical” by critics of Skepchick. I wonder what would happen if these folks met a radical feminist (one possible reaction…). Both Skepchick and FTB are pretty thirdwavy, that’s anything but radical…

And, as usual, some of the worst offenders are the mangina-enablers, collaborating in a transparent attempt to score some feminazi ass. *shudder*

These MRA arseholes are so broken that they cannot even conceive of cis/het men who are motivated to support feminism out of commitment to the idea that women are actual people – and so deserve all the rights and standing in society that should be afforded to any human, including such things as bodily atonomy.

It is truly sad that they are so utterly incapable of forming functional relationships with women that their default position is to assume that any cis/het man who expresses support for feminism must be doing it soley as a cynical strategy to manipulate women feminists into bed.

I going to read your response charitably Ing, like perhaps you are not aware of the things I have already done and still do to try to put a stop to the TF shenanigans. PZ has even told me personally that he knows me and Aron have tried, and we really aren’t responsible for what happened. We are not Thunderf00t’s keeper. We felt honor bound to say something to him about his behavior. He actually told us he can’t be restrained by the effects of his actions on his friends presumably if he feels he is right.

I have already defined what I meant by drama -as being creating trouble with the intent to hurt someone usually over something petty. I even said this video is to generate drama. I also said it would only be worth it to intervene if it did good like shining a light on how dismissive attitudes like TFs about sexist attitudes in the secular community aren’t exactly helping the community add more women to its ranks. The last time we intervened it did no good, we just caught caught in the middle of the ruckus. I don’t have very high hopes of a rational discussion based on what happened lats time.

Finally, I have experienced discrimination in my life for being an atheist, and I didn’t back down. So I am not opposed to boat rocking given there is a point in it.

Lil…. I cannot wrap my head around why you are still friends with TF. He appears abusive, abrasive, and exceptionally self-centered and lacking in empathy. He reminds me a lot of my uncle, who I take every pain to avoid because while I can’t stop being related to him I *can* visibly express my disapproval of his behaviour.

Yeah… when lilandra asked if anybody hadn’t had a friend like Thunderfoot, who can’t tolerate being wrong and is spitefully revengeful when criticized? I was like, nope. People like that simply aren’t friends of mine.

I don’t understand at all why you would continue to call him a friend, Lilandra.

Actually Sally I said I don’t think he can be convinced he is wrong by someone else. I’d be happy to be proven wrong by him on this but I don’t have very high hopes on a turnaround. He hasn’t been spiteful per se to us for criticizing him. He has been more dismissive on this topic. He has indeed been vengeful to others like Matt and PZ.

<Actually Sally I said I don’t think he can be convinced he is wrong by someone else. I’d be happy to be proven wrong by him on this but I don’t have very high hopes on a turnaround. He hasn’t been spiteful per se to us for criticizing him. He has been more dismissive on this topic. He has indeed been vengeful to others like Matt and PZ.

So it’s someone who is absurdly closed minded and vindictive against people who fail to see his super genius. Again, this isn’t a friendship this is a hostage situation.

I am having a bit of a problem with people putting lilandra on the spot for maintaining a friendship with TF. She is between a rock & a hard place. I’ve been there, twice and it is hard to choose between personal loyalty and a principle. If we were all Vulcans, we would always opt for principle – but even Spock chose friendship over logic, sometimes.

#228 a_ray_in_dilbert_space

I think that one thing apologists for TF et al. are ignoring is the fact that the skeptical community is not the first to have to deal with the issue of male domination and the effect this has on the women in the movement.

I think one thing the skeptical/atheist community ignores it that many women became skeptics and atheists BECAUSE of patriarchy. Every ounce of sin, pain, suffering, injustice, war and death in this world was all due to Eve. And as every woman is a “daughter of Eve”, she deserves to be punished, she deserves to suffer, she is less of a person, she is subject to men and she “WILL NEVER BE EQUAL TO MEN”. When I read this in the bible, it was the beginning of the end of my faith.
I became a skeptic to reject the popular, but wrong, “common sense” that infected people’s thinking. It wasn’t just about UFO’s and bigfoot, it was about the common knowledge that women are more emotional and less logical, or are better at childcare or only care about makeup and shoes.
I became a skeptic and atheist BECAUSE I was a feminist.
I wonder how many other women in the movement would say the same thing?

Look, I have plenty of friends who are deeply and unpersuadably wrong about one or more important issues. It’s called being human, I’m afraid. Let’s all perhaps agree that friendship is not equivalent to political endorsement and doesn’t have to go through peer review?

Well yes I’m using fight loosely. But I was expecting a little more then the token effort by YHCMichael. Which was pretty much clarify that offending people isn’t wrong not really much of a disagreement.

@418:
I get what you’re saying…up to a point; and depending on the issue. If tf00t were an accomodationist, and people criticized lilandra for her friendship with him, I would take issue with that. As it stands, she is friends with someone who takes no issue with lying about his opponents, cherry picking them, denying the reality of sexual harassment, and actively dismissing the concerns of women in the atheoskeptisphere. I think he crossed over from having a disagreeable opinion into all around harmful assholishness.
It is the same reason I criticize Al Stefanelli for associating with Reap Paden.

I am having a bit of a problem with people putting lilandra on the spot for maintaining a friendship with TF. She is between a rock & a hard place. I’ve been there, twice and it is hard to choose between personal loyalty and a principle. If we were all Vulcans, we would always opt for principle – but even Spock chose friendship over logic, sometimes.

I did not see your comment. I believe I made it clear that I’m willing to believe Thunderf00t omited important details on the message when I wrote:

I’m willing to believe she continued talking and made her point into something else. I’m willing to believe it was something she later retracted and doesn’t stand by. I’m willing to believe it was something other members of the Google chat disagreed with.

I don’t think this is the place for it, but I’d be interested in seeing you write more about the difference between words that upset or offend and words that hurt. If you simply mean things like threats and harassment, then I agree with you.

OliverCrangle, you take the fucking proverbial cake.
I can either assume that you have no idea what these words mean but your clearly overinflated ego tells you than you are free to opine about things you are ignorant of using words the meaning of which you are ignorant of….
or
you DO know what derailing is and what mansplaining is, and you are derailing by claiming that the use of a definition is derailing, because you are a liar and a coward.

I don’t know what you hope to achieve here.
I have read your words in this thread and one other.

You have created the most carefully constructed assemblage of absolutely nothing that I have seen in quite some time.
Your words add nothing. Nothing.
I don;t mean in the context of this discussion, or of Pharyngula, or FTB, or the atheist movement.

Universally. I mean that universally. There is literally no original thought, no insight, nothing new worth considering.

atiev:
The title of this post points to a reason to be selective about ones friends. Lilandra hasn’t submitted thunderf00t for the Special Atheist Friendship Peer Review (nor would I ever expect anyone to do such a thing). Some of us are trying to understand why someone would be friends with a person like tf00t in the face of his actions (speaking of which, lets add using unapproved images and dishonestly sneaking into the FtB back channel).

The more interesting question would be how PZ would react if the owner of the image asked it to be taken down. I doubt you’d see him get all defensive and start going on about how this copy right claim infringes on his free speech.

SGBM:
No I did not know that. Not a good practice to indulge in, however, as far as I am aware, tf00t has more checks in the “hi I am a thundering shartface” column than PZ, so each strike against him is part of a greater whole.

What I know for certain is that he’s been called out on copyright infringement before, and only then added attribution. He mentions he finds pics for Thunderdome by combing Tumblr. Given his approach to these matters in the past, it would be stupid to assume that he’s getting permission for every image he uses. The reasonable assumption is that he approaches the internet the way most people do, as a source of media to reuse without thought to copyright. I don’t give a shit. I’m in favor of it. I just don’t want to see outsiders hypocritically castigated for the same.

Sorry. I was under the impression that some images have a disclaimer stating that they cannot be used without permission while others do not. I thought perhaps that might be the difference between PZ and tf00t’s use of the respective images.

Ah. When you see a statement attached like “you may not use this image without my permission”, that is really just a reminder of the law. Also it makes it easier for the copyright holder to collect damages if they decide to file a civil lawsuit. But it’s only a reminder — by default the law is always that you must seek permission unless there is a statement from the copyright holder saying something like “you can use this without permission” or “I release this into the public domain” or “I am licensing this under [some copyleft license (e.g. the CC-BY-SA like we use at Pharyngula Wiki)]”.

Dubito Ergo Sum points out that Surly Amy asked Thunderfoot to either add attribution to her photo or take it down. Apparently he took it down? but attacked her for asking. I can’t condemn the use of the photo per se, but it is outrageous to attack someone for asking that their work be attributed to them.

You are a n00b, not a newb. A newb wouldn’t be so demanding of other people’s time on things they can learn for themselves.

TF’s broke with FTB months ago and the reasons for that breaking began rolling much longer ago than that.

TF is apparently still unhappy with the atheists who are anti-oppression too getting space at FTB than the atheists who just want to hammer on the god crap all the time and ignore social justice and oppressions who would then, like every other space the privileged get to go round uncheck, turn it into just their space by offending marginalized people with their privilege so much so often that the marginalized will leave.

Being atheist isn’t the end-all be all of a persons identity some atheists weren’t going to simply ignore all the attacks and slurs and ridicule and privilege tossing at yet another atheist hub that already leaned towards the social justice side so the powers-at-be at FTB, which I think is Ed Brayton, picked who they would rather have as an audience, and for once it wasn’t the same people who dominate the whole damned internet: het, white, over-privileged, uncaring-for-others, boys, men, and males. Those guys, and TF are still angry about it.

Me, I was thrilled with the change, as my identity-difference from what is considered the norm isn’t just atheist; I’m a autistic, physically-disabled (right-forequarter amputee, terminal cancer), mentally disabled, mentally ill, gender-queer, asexual, rape survivor (4 women attacked me). I have white and male, but not man privilege and try not to harm others with my privilege. I’ve been anti-oppression for a long time and generally have to take hate from those same that hate women and female persons, but not here.

On the copyright issue there is still fair use of an image, a thumbnail counts as fair use, an image that is just a partial image or sample counts too (though that can be reevaluated), but defendants generally lose against charges of infringement even though sometimes they do win. TF did the smart thing by taking the image down if the owner of the copyright complained.

I run in art circles and see a lot of people who act entitled to the work of others and attack the very artists they snag even whole images from. The artists they’d lose to in courts or lose their website to (if the artist went after their host) if slapped with a cease-and-desist order.

But still I would find it strange that people in the US would associate their grandparents with racial bigots for respecting the laws affirming the racially segregated society they lived in.

Here’s an idea:
Most of them were, some of them are still. They didn’t only obey those rules and laws, they also thought them to be OK. The fact that they lived in a society that generally thought like that doesn’t make them less bigoted.
The fact that I loved my grandpa doesn’t change the fact that he was a misogynist and that he was an SS-volunteer.

michaeld

Thunderf00t: “I mean really an executive director from the center of iquiry running a flagging campaign. I mean shit these people would give scientology a run for their money.”

That’s still quite funny compared to the temper tantrum he threw when some folks badly photoshopped his head onto some porn pictures. No, that’s not OK, but he went wild about it and accused each and every person who had ever so much as disagreed with him about being complicit in this.
Guess it’s only freedom of expression when he and his folks do it.
And he’s still upset about people calling him by his real name while demanding that Melody Hensley should endure a harassment campaign against her meatspace identity and life.

+++
And I’m still worried that people like Crangle are more upset about the idea of PZ having sex with that woman than him killing and eating her. Because, well, that was the other half of that analogy. So, if one is totally to be taken serious, why not the other?

It depends what it’s used for. The safest thing is to critique the image itself. But in this case, where the idea illustrated by the image — specifically, the text “talking about sexism is not the problem, sexism is the problem” — is what’s ostensibly being critiqued, not even a thumbnail of the image would add to the critique. That is, an ostensible critique of the idea would not be substantially augmented by adding the image. And so not even a thumbnail would be likely to be protected under fair use.

I find it infinitely amusing how Oliver derails this entire thread by demanding that PZ engage specific critics then declares an observation of his own behavior to be derailing. Hell, the sum of his input here serves as proof that the sophisticated theology argument is not limited to just religious apologists. After all, you can’t consider yourself open-minded or your position rational unless you accept every debate challenge, thoroughly analyze every YouTube video, and pour over every puddle of boiling excrement dumped over every square inch of the internet in unwavering pursuit of the thermonuclear device that will finally blast your arguments clear out of the sky once and for all! If you don’t jump through all the hoops which the sole arbiter of rationality erects for you it only proves the vacuity of your position and the mortal terror you live in of having your worldview turned upside down.

And I’m still worried that people like Crangle are more upset about the idea of PZ having sex with that woman than him killing and eating her. Because, well, that was the other half of that analogy. So, if one is totally to be taken serious, why not the other?

Perhaps because it’s more convenient to portray PZ as a leering sex-hound (and therefore a hypocrite) than as an anthropophagic murderer.

IANAL and can only take cues from the results of lawsuits I hear about and use of media in recent past.

I do know now per-wiki, that fair use cases are evaluated on a case-by-case basis and thus a case that was ruled to be fair use doesn’t mean a seemingly identical case won’t be ruled as infringement. I was wrong to say thumbnails and other things are okay when fair use is found per-case.

If I was told the truth: certain institutions, like universities, can safely use copyrighted work as a part of something, I asked the producer of a play I was crew on in theatre why they were using copyrighted material in their soundtrack and she replied that the theatre department pays a fee to somewhere, I think a federal agency, that allows them to use copyrighted materials. I don’t know if that extends to things like scripts, which my drama department in highschool had to always raise money for, or on things like videos and movies as I never asked about those things. I remember there being a regular movie night thing at my university too, and I’d doubt they would violate the copyright of corporations who’d crush them in court for their public showings.

The best advice I can give for others is: if you have a doubt about fair use don’t use the image/media; and if you do go ahead and use the image, play it safe and take it down if the copyright holder complains.

Me, I don’t use anyone else’s images as I can make them from scratch to cut out any doubt about fair use or infringement if illustrating a topic for discussion with a my own stuff.

Many creative individuals who own the copyright to their work might not care much if others use their work so long as money isn’t involved or it isn’t otherwise used to promote those using it or something else, I’m one of those kinds of creators, but also many creators are less relaxed about unsolicited, un-credited use of their work no matter how the work is being used; I think creators should be respected and their work no longer be used if they say no to another’s use of it without the creator getting attacked or needing to resort to legal proceedings starting with a cease-and-desist and then going further to force the other to stop using their work.

Thinking about the copyright/fair-use thing, maybe FTB could hire content creators for images and visual resources FTB would own for use when creating billboards or illustrating a article with an image that applies to a idea that gets discussed often. Many artists on DA and sites like DA seem to undervalue the worth of their time and skills in their commission prices, though I don’t want them exploited FTB and the artist should be able to work out a deal with FTB getting the copyright on the image too. I’ve noticed calls for artwork by volunteers, but with volunteers who don’t have a contractual obligation there’s a risk of them ripping art from other artists work to create logos and things.

My argument in this thread is that PZ needs to watch Thunderfoot’s video himself. And that it is bogus for PZ to excoriate, dismiss, and disparage Thunderfoot for this video without ever having watched the video.

He didn’t. PZ was pointing out that some rather unsavory people had latched on to Thunderf00t’s video and were giving it a big thumbs up. There’s no need to watch the video to recognize how someone else is responding to it.

At some point PZ asked what portion of the video he should address, so I gave a spot, and explained why I think Thunderfoot had a problem with it.

And I explained why I think the point you raised actually is in favor of PZ’s position, not Thunderf00t’s.

I don’t go to many conferences, or run them, or deal with security, it’s not clear to me what should be done. But I have seen arguments for explicit policies and arguments saying to leave it up to the venue and local law. I tend to prefer the latter arguments because otherwise I think everyone is opening a legal can of worms and forcing a lot of non experts to take on the roles that even experts frequently get wrong.

Massive false dichotomy going on here. It’s not a choice between making all the decision for conferences or shutting up and not getting involved. Attempts have been made to produce temples for sexual harassment policies, that conferences can then adapt to their own particular needs.
This sounds like just another attempt to paint us all as totalitarian maniacs. The arguments around here have focused less on any specific policy and more on the general approach; clear reporting procedures, logging of complaints for statistical purposes, a general focus and awareness of rules and procedures, well-trained staff who know what to do. These points are neither invasive nor controversial. They’re the baseline that any half-decent conference ought to have.

The other issue is that examining PZ and Watson’s hypocritical behaviors here should give us all pause.

I have heard no examples from you of said “hypocritical behaviors”. E.g. there’s nothing hypocritical about being in favor of sexual harassment rules and also showing your boobs to a consenting adult. The fact that you’re trying to draw such a parallel makes me think you’re either completely oblivious or deliberately dishonest.

At the risk of stating the exceedingly obvious, Crangle does not give the tiniest of fucks about the woman in the video. He’s just using her as ammunition. If he cared about women being sexually harassed, he would be in agreement with PZ/FTB in general on the issue, and not preaching about John The Other.

It’s seriously pathetic, Oliver. At least have the honesty to argue for your actual opinions, rather than trying to ‘gotcha’ PZ on his own stance.

See my #297 – link to the video, and my description of the actual events Thunderfart and olivercrangle claim show PZ sexually harassing a woman.

I agree with the point someone made that even if PZ and Rebecca Watson were massive hypocrites, it would have no relevance to the validity of the arguments for clear, properly applied anti-harassment policies at atheoskeptical conferences.

D Pitman’s comment was clearly postmodernist art, after all if he wants to criticise PZ for PZ mentioning a video PZ hasn’t watched, then he can’t exactly read the thread now can he? That way madness would lie.

It would also require something like reading for basic comprehension, and that’s far too hard. Dismissively mentioning as a lead to another point =/= detailed criticism after all. Who knew?

D Pitman’s comment was clearly postmodernist art, after all if he wants to criticise PZ for PZ mentioning a video PZ hasn’t watched, then he can’t exactly read the thread now can he? That way madness would lie.

Seems more like a really boring form of Dadaism to me, one that’s not even trying to look like it’s being clever or interesting, just struggling to attract attention. Maybe a bit of Sturm und Drang, but with incoherent spittle instead of real emotion.

I remember when Thunderf00t was the soft voice that never showed up in his videos. He demonstrated wonder at science and I genuinely enjoyed new releases. I enjoyed more when he did show his face and destroyed the creationist nonsense of VenomfangX, a prominent youtube apologist. I remember VenomfangX being so soundly and continuously defeated that instead of giving up a well dug-in position he just became more unhinged to the point where his own allies went from seeing him as an avatar of their cause to a nut they couldn’t get away from fast enough.